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about us

A community of change-makers
creating meaningful difference in
the lives of foster youth.

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Who We Are

We are Yvonne and Leanna Bennett co-founders of Bennett Place, Inc.

This idea started on a cold rainy morning outside of a coffee house. As Yvonne was entering the coffee house, she saw a young man standing at the front door asking for money.

Yvonne stopped and asked him what he was doing as he appeared young; he stated that he came from the boy’s home up the road and that he was ageing out in a couple of months. Along with ageing out he did not have his high school diploma. He stated, verbatim, “This is my future so I might as well start now to get used to it”.

Yvonne and this young man had a conversation about how he could change his future and she advised him to get on back up the boys home and get his diploma, so he can get a job and not become a statistic.

Fast forward a couple of years. We have been foster parents to teenagers since 2017 and have witnessed the fear of ageing out. Their magic number is 18 and then they get to be an adult…are they ready…? Well, the kids we have been taking care of are far from ready to age out of our home, nor do they have the life skills to transition to become an adult. They have focused on survival; where am I going to sleep tonight and where is my next meal coming from.

As we have watched and worked with the kids in our home, we have come to realize the piece that is missing is feeling safe enough to deal with their trauma. We provide a Bennett Place program in our home and once the kids start to feel safe, the real work begins.

These kids not only need stable food and housing through this transition, but they also need mental health support. The mental health piece of this equation is critical for these kids; from suppressed memories, to never having told a single person the trauma they survived can create a vortex of spiraling emotions and an inability to function in their daily lives.

We are Bennett Place, a place to call home so that the work of healing the hurts that these kids have endured in their young lives can be accomplished without the threat of being homeless and hungry. For these kids this is their chance to break the cycle.

Transforming futures through
small acts of kindness.

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