Stony Knoll Youth Services (SKYS) is a 501(c) (3) charitable corporation in San Diego, California that was established in 2001 to assist at-risk young men and women with their struggles to navigate one of the toughest phases of most lives-adolescence. The mission for SKYS has always been to seek ways to help these kids feel as if they were special and that their lives could have meaning. Most of the teens with whom we work have lived through home environments that have included poverty, physical and sexual abuse, abandonment, and general neglect. They haven’t had the opportunities for life experiences necessary for healthy development, or of appropriate role models to help them around the many obstacles that have been placed in their way. Many of them are in the juvenile justice system as wards of the court or as foster children. Our program offers educational and inspirational travel and field trip activities that take them outside of their neighborhoods to places that until now have been beyond their imaginations. An important benefit of these activities is that the kids tend to relax when they are away from the drama at home. With their defenses down, and with growing feelings of trust, they are better able to open up regarding personal issues that are hindering growth and are more receptive to what their counselors have to share. It is our hope that all participants in our programs will learn that the unfortunate things that have happened to them in the past should not determine who they are today or who they will be in the future.
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The vision for SKYS has grown from a three-night campout in the mountains outside of San Diego involving fifteen teens from juvenile court that had never seen a forest or a lake. Following that event, a chance meeting at a conference lead to an invitation to participate in what for several years became an annual cultural exchange with teens in an Alaska Native-American Village, where our kids had the opportunity to share experiences with peers living in a small Tlingkit community. In 2010, SKYS shifted the program direction when a small group of teens traveled to New Zealand at the invitation of a Maori Juvenile Court judge. Our group moved through the north and south islands meeting with and being hosted by Maori families as they exchanged life experiences with members of several Maori communities. Once again, as they had in Kake, our kids had opportunities to share life experiences with peers and to hear from elders about life in another faraway community.
After successfully getting our kids to New Zealand and back, we realized that it could be possible for SKYS to arrange for our kids to meet with peers in any part of the world. SKYS once again set lofty goals as we set out to get our kids to other countries on other continents with the hope of inspiring them to realize that their own goals and aspirations could also be extended far beyond that to which they have been raised to believe are possible. With this in mind, we set out to find people who would agree to host our rejuvenating kids once they heard our stories.
In 2011, Habitat for Humanity worked with us to make it possible for a group of teens to help with building two homes on the Island of Kauai, Hawaii. In 2012, we again found people in Paris and in several parts of Germany who opened their hearts and their homes to help kids that they
had never met. The next year we were hosted by new friends in Shanghai, China where our kids lived on campus at an elite Chinese high school. In 2014 SKYS accepted an invitation from a drug court judge to spend an activity loaded week at a lakeside lodge north of Seattle, Washington.
Many of over 200 teenagers that have participated since we began the program had never been on a plane, and some of them had never even been very far from their own small neighborhoods. Finding themselves in cities on the other side of the world, several have used words like “incredible”, “beyond my wildest dreams”, and “unbelievable” as they detail their experiences in required daily journals. Some of them carry photos of the experiences in order to remember as well as to prove their stories to disbelieving friends.
Since its inception in 2001, SKYS has relied primarily on the continued generosity of several private donors, two small family foundations, and many small contributions from individuals who want to help. An attorney wrote a short note with his last donation in which he stated “…thanks Danny. Keep up the good work; I wish my practice did as much good for the world…” Another long time donor wrote “I am amazed at what you have been providing to these kids all these years…I see how these opportunities provide a glimmer of how life can be different, and hopefully that glimmer becomes a gleam and stays with the kids long enough to make a lasting impression.” A third donor noted “It is really an intriguing vision to have for trying to set these troubled kids on a different path. I remember certain kids have told you that it was eye-opening and novel for them to feel like they mattered and that other people in the wider world wanted to hear what THEY had to say…Anyway, the fact that you have been able to connect with so many people around the world who will open their lives to you, is a sure testament to the validity of what you are doing.”
The generosity of SKYS’ supporters has enabled us to continue to shine a little light on some very special kids. We are now in a position to take what we have learned over the last fourteen years and expand our programs to include more kids in these “life-changing” activities.
After successfully getting our kids to New Zealand and back, we realized that it could be possible for SKYS to arrange for our kids to meet with peers in any part of the world. SKYS once again set lofty goals as we set out to get our kids to other countries on other continents with the hope of inspiring them to realize that their own goals and aspirations could also be extended far beyond that to which they have been raised to believe are possible. With this in mind, we set out to find people who would agree to host our rejuvenating kids once they heard our stories.
In 2011, Habitat for Humanity worked with us to make it possible for a group of teens to help with building two homes on the Island of Kauai, Hawaii. In 2012, we again found people in Paris and in several parts of Germany who opened their hearts and their homes to help kids that they
had never met. The next year we were hosted by new friends in Shanghai, China where our kids lived on campus at an elite Chinese high school. In 2014 SKYS accepted an invitation from a drug court judge to spend an activity loaded week at a lakeside lodge north of Seattle, Washington.
Many of over 200 teenagers that have participated since we began the program had never been on a plane, and some of them had never even been very far from their own small neighborhoods. Finding themselves in cities on the other side of the world, several have used words like “incredible”, “beyond my wildest dreams”, and “unbelievable” as they detail their experiences in required daily journals. Some of them carry photos of the experiences in order to remember as well as to prove their stories to disbelieving friends.
Since its inception in 2001, SKYS has relied primarily on the continued generosity of several private donors, two small family foundations, and many small contributions from individuals who want to help. An attorney wrote a short note with his last donation in which he stated “…thanks Danny. Keep up the good work; I wish my practice did as much good for the world…” Another long time donor wrote “I am amazed at what you have been providing to these kids all these years…I see how these opportunities provide a glimmer of how life can be different, and hopefully that glimmer becomes a gleam and stays with the kids long enough to make a lasting impression.” A third donor noted “It is really an intriguing vision to have for trying to set these troubled kids on a different path. I remember certain kids have told you that it was eye-opening and novel for them to feel like they mattered and that other people in the wider world wanted to hear what THEY had to say…Anyway, the fact that you have been able to connect with so many people around the world who will open their lives to you, is a sure testament to the validity of what you are doing.”
The generosity of SKYS’ supporters has enabled us to continue to shine a little light on some very special kids. We are now in a position to take what we have learned over the last fourteen years and expand our programs to include more kids in these “life-changing” activities.
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