‘Gathering Grounds’ gathers steam for opening

WASILLA — The teens who come in the door at the Gathering Grounds are a lot like Kyra Hoenack. Some are her friends, and some were her classmates at Burchell High School.

But it’s the ways these kids carrying duffle bags and backpacks aren’t like her that makes her voice break when she shares the part of their stories that strip away their dignity and reduce them to invisible humans, mere statistics on a page.

Hoenack was 15 when she began volunteering at MY House and serving on its board as the student rep. It’s her job to help the adults on the board see homelessness from a teen perspective, she said.

Michelle Overstreet, MY House board president, said Hoenack has stepped them away from a number of ideas the adults on the board picked but the teen panned. Like host homes. Hoenack said no way, kids would always feel like they were invading someone’s space.

“I know for myself I wouldn’t like it,” she said.

A Burchell graduate who will work at the café for her brother who will manage it, Hoenack said she didn’t really “get it” until her classmates from school started coming through the door of the center carrying all of their worldly possessions in well-worn backpacks or gym bags.

“The other day it really hit me,” she said. “We are seeing kids now with all of their things coming through the door. It’s almost surreal seeing them like that.”

Her voice cracks, but she continues unafraid. “Since they aren’t being taken care of, they are our kids now.”

‘Everybody cares about these kids’

Nurses, chefs, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, flooring installers and more have all donated expertise to build the Gathering Grounds. Overstreet said the longtime home of Husky Electric — 300 N. Willow St. — in downtown Wasilla has been a hive of activity since MY House signed a lease for the building June 1.

And by mid-August, Alaskans will be able to help minimize the impacts of homelessness on Valley teens just by buying a cup of coffee, a sandwich or having their car detailed, Overstreet said.

During the day, Gathering Grounds will be a regular café serving coffee and sandwiches from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m., and from 3 to 7 p.m. the kitchen will feed homeless teens.

“I think our community will support this,” Overstreet said.

The café also will feature Alaska Grown products from Havemeister Dairy, the Coffee Roastery, Summit Spice and Tea and Evangelo’s Restaurant.

“It’s nice to have the local products, but also the local businesses helping,” Overstreet said.

She said the all-volunteer effort is unique in the nation and expands on MY House’s previous outreach programs by providing a one-stop shop where homeless teens can tie into a community network that will help them find jobs, get clothing and food and offer caring adults willing to listen and nurture them.

“Nine Star has been here since the day we signed the lease,” she said. “We don’t have housing here, but if we can get them to work they can begin work on life goals.”

Overstreet said the idea is to build a place where homeless kids can be productive, can build job and life skills and where the community can deposit resources to amplify their efforts.

“This is not a teen center. It is not a hang out,” she said. “We are all volunteers and we need them to keep this place going.”

Teens won’t be getting something for nothing at the center, Overstreet said. Teens who drop by should expect to be put to work, she said.

During the second half of the day, Gathering Grounds also will offer life skills classes Monday through Friday on topics such as how to open a bank account, what is compounded interest or how to balance a checkbook.

“Now they can come in at night and learn about personal finance over supper,” she said.

Overstreet said MY House also is looking for community volunteers to come in and teach classes for teens in its space.

‘Kids helping kids’

Although MY House had outgrown its office space on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway, the nonprofit wasn’t actively looking for a new location. But a call from Colony High School changed all that.

Students at Colony High last year raised $11,000 to do something wonderful and lasting for their homeless peers, Overstreet said. The board knew this money was special and wanted to make sure it was used to do something permanent to help the Valley’s homeless teens.

“That’s kids helping kids,” Overstreet said. “We really wanted to showcase that.”

It was about the same time Bert Cottle called from the city of Wasilla to invite the board to have a look at the former Husky Electric space.

They couldn’t afford rent for a whole building, they said. Come and see it, Cottle nudged.

Any building considered would have to meet a long list of criteria first, Overstreet said. The building would need space for a café. Check. With a drive through. Check. Space to store donations. Check. Space for a health clinic and a job center. Check and check.

Husky Electric even had enough space that part of it could be rented to a second business, too, Cottle said.

Overstreet said they didn’t have a business in mind for the space, until serendipity intervened in the form of Ben Beach, who called to ask about renting the shop at end of the building to house his new car detailing business, CarDeets.

A rule change by the Legislature last session allows nonprofits like MY House to collect rents and use the income to offset operational costs, Overstreet said.

Beach is a Mat-Su Career Tech graduate and is headed to Disney University in the fall to study theater. For now, he’s interviewing and hiring homeless teens to detail customers’ cars.

Overstreet said more than that, Beach also plans to donate 5 percent of his profits back to the nonprofit to help make it sustainable, too.

That’s the sort of innovative thinking that is the hallmark of this community project. And it’s not just Rotary or volunteers from local churches helping out either. Overstreet said she’s been surprised by the broad swath of her community that is willing to lend a hand, swing a hammer, wield a paint brush and lay tile, including local electrical and plumbing contractors who’ve donated their services.

“Everybody gets it,” she said. “Everybody cares about these kids.”

‘Rebellion is not homelessness’

About a third of the 14- to 24-year-old homeless teens Overstreet sees have aged out of foster care and can’t make enough working at minimum-wage jobs to afford rent.

She said she sees some kids who are on the street because they just don’t like their parents’ rules. She said that’s their choice, not homelessness.

“Some kids don’t have a choice — dad’s in jail and mom lost the apartment,” she said. “Rebellion is not homelessness.”

The center will have a couple of volunteers trained in family reunification to try to help bring families back in sync with one another. The center’s conference room has been set up as a warm, non-threatening place and includes a big screen TV that will be used for video training by one of the center’s tenants.

Longtime nurse Pat Hogan is a volunteer for MY House who will use her 40 years of nursing experience to help provide health care for the teens on site.

“The only way to get someone up is to help them up,” she said. “I’m passionate about people who have no one to advocate for them.”

Although the center isn’t set to open for about two weeks, Overstreet said they already have served 28 homeless teens at the new location, passed out 13 sleeping bags and given away seven or eight cases of water.

Hogan said it takes this sort of community network to address a systemic problem like homelessness.

“Homelessness is a problem that isn’t going to get better until we stand up and scream about it, she said. “I’m well aware of the issues — disease, illness, drugs, malnutrition and depression — they are all related.”

Alice Renfro is another part of the caring network of adults at the center. She is a culinary trained chef who is onboard to make the evening meal for homeless teens.

Overstreet said they test-drove Renfro’s cooking during summer school at Burchell. She said the teens loved Renfro and her cooking. Now kids see her yellow car parked in front of the center and come in.

“Is Alice cooking? What is she cooking?”

This sense of community is part of what the center hopes to impart to kids.

“Kids need to feel like they are part of a community,” Overstreet said. “They are excited about being part of what we are doing. These are kids who want to work, who want to be part of a community.”

Contact Heather A. Resz at 352-2268 or heather.resz@frontiersman.com.