Benefield: Young mom has goal in sight, needs an assist

Daysha Torres hasn’t played soccer in years.

She used to be a decent goalkeeper but loved playing forward when she was younger, back when life allowed her to play games like soccer. Back when it was a little more acceptable to be aggressive.

But now she’s 18 now and has a 2-year-old daughter. It’s no longer to OK to be aggressive. Being aggressive - off the field - got her into trouble, made her into what she describes as the “super, super, super bad kid” she once was.

For five years Torres has been in and out of foster homes, in and out of a handful of different high schools, in and out of any semblance of a stable home life. It’s enough to make anybody angry, aggressive - “bad.”

But it’s soccer - that game she hasn’t played in years - that Torres is counting on to send her a bit of a lifeline.

Torres is gunning for a nascent scholarship being funded by a community soccer tournament Oct. 12. The scholarship, if she gets it, would help pay for her to attend Lytle’s Beauty College in Santa Rosa, to nab an internship at Brush Salon in Healdsburg, to get back on track.

Organizers acknowledge that on the surface, it’s an odd pairing: a soccer tournament to help foster youth attend beauty college.

But for David Barnett, owner of Brush and an architect of the event, it makes perfect sense.

Barnett, a soccer-loving Brit who is a bit weary of silent auctions and wine-soaked dinners, thought, let’s lighten up, let’s play a game and let’s get this thing going. People don’t even have to know what or who they are playing for - they can just come, register a team, sweat it up and generate funding for the trade school scholarship.

“It gets them playing a sport and gets them playing as a team, rather than going to another dinner, another auction, another tasting,” he said.

“It’s fun and motivational,” he said. “It took the emphasis away from money.”

But the emphasis must, at least in part, be money. It costs nearly $20,000 to attend most beauty schools, Barnett said. For a kid who hasn’t had a stable home or a solid relationship with a parent in years, it’s a hurdle that immediately appears insurmountable.

“The way I look at it is, I have always had my parents to lean on,” he said. “I have always lived away from home but still, I’ve always known I can pick up the phone anytime. I don’t know how hard it could possibly be to not have that. To get up and go and do this on their own? I can’t imagine not having some sort of support system.”

So Barnett hooked up with VOICES-Sonoma, a local nonprofit agency that offers a network of support for young people who are transitioning out of the foster care system and into the community. That’s a passage many young people don’t - or can’t - navigate successfully. It’s a critical juncture that can set the direction for their entire adult lives.

“They would take you from your parents and then when you turned 18 it was like, ‘You are not our responsibility anymore,’ ” Torres said.

The foster system now covers young adults until they are 21 but sometimes it’s a tough sell, telling a newly minted adult they should continue to work within the system.

Torres has lived it. She was removed from her home when she was 13 because her mom lost the ability to care for her. She, and her younger siblings, were housed at Valley of the Moon Children’s Home before being placed in a series of foster homes, most often apart from each other. Torres hasn’t seen her younger brothers in years.

That’s when Torres turned angry. Turned into that “super bad” kid.

She bounced around for years, got pregnant and almost had her own daughter taken away. But since Kymberli was born, Torres has righted her ship. She has an apartment, she is linked in with VOICES and TLC Child and Family Services, and she is about 40 units away from graduating high school.

Torres is lucky. She was given opportunities and has worked for others.

Attending beauty school will give Torres a direction she can be passionate about, skills she can take anywhere. Without help, it won’t work for her or for her daughter. And college doesn’t feel like a realistic option.

“These kids’ experiences that we are working with? They’ve hit seven or eight high schools in their life and not always had the best experience in high school,” said Amber Twitchell, director of VOICES and a coordinator of the upcoming soccer tournament. “To try and say, ‘Hey, we know you didn’t have a great time in high school but we promise junior college is going to be better and you have to take 12 units and work and possibly take care of a baby or younger sibling’ - the mountain gets a little higher for these kids.”

“That’s not a reality for a lot of these young people,” Twitchell said. “It just isn’t.”

But offer a chance at a skill they can parlay into a living? Now that’s an opportunity that has staying power.

Barnett has partnered with Kathy Lytle at the beauty college to guarantee admission to at least one student. If the soccer tournament goes gangbusters? Maybe more.

And VOICES will offer support almost unheard of in any other scholarship. The stuff people don’t think about: help with daycare if a student has a sick child, a lift to class if a car breaks down or bus fare can’t be managed. Twitchell has seen those things arise and she’s seen them derail dreams of young adults who are barely hanging on to begin with.

“We’re identifying those barriers from the very beginning and saying, ‘Those are not barriers to making this happen,’?” she said.

Twitchell, who has seen her share of fundraisers, said this one feels different.

“I can just imagine all of my young people being there watching them play their hearts out, all in pursuit of giving them opportunities,” she said. “This is active and participatory and all of us coming together. And let’s have some fun doing it.”

You can reach staff columnist Kerry Benefield at 526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com and on Twitter @benefield.