Five years ago, Ashley Williams came home to find all of her belongings sitting on the front porch ““ her foster mother’s way of telling Williams she had to move out.
Williams’ mentor, Jonli Tunstall, opened her home to Williams, who stayed with Tunstall until she moved to UCLA as a freshman in 2008.
Tunstall is the director of a UCLA high school student outreach program that Williams participated in.
Now a third-year sociology student, Williams leads the Bruin Guardian Scholars Program, a group she and other foster youths founded to provide academic and peer support to current and former foster youths on campus, Williams said.
On Monday, Bruin Guardian Scholars held their second annual Thanksgiving dinner.
The event brought UCLA foster students together with faculty, staff, parent volunteers and members of the alumni board. Event planners hoped to provide the foster students with a somewhat traditional holiday experience that many of them might not get to experience on their own, said Jacquie Gilliam, director of Bruin Parents and Families, which helped coordinate the event.
Williams said she hoped the event would reinforce the sense of community the group seeks to build among the Bruin Guardian Scholars.
“When you don’t have somewhere to go (for Thanksgiving), you feel lonely, like no one really cares,” Williams said. “It’s a really bad place.”
Having a family or a community to help foster youths is a big motivator, and hosting events like this Thanksgiving dinner are important to building that community and encouraging youths, she added.
Some of the students said they felt the dinner was essentially one shared with family.
“It’s wonderful. I almost never do anything for Thanksgiving,” said Andre Cartier, a first-year physics student. “It’s great to be around people that … are willing to help.”
Cartier said he feels the Bruin Guardian Scholars provide the sense of family he lacked growing up in the foster care system.
“We’re pretty cohesive,” Cartier said. “We all come from odd backgrounds, and I think we come together because we know that it’s not necessarily easy to get here.”
For parents at the event, some of whom drove from San Diego or flew from New York to eat dinner with the students, the night was about reaching out to students on a personal level.
“These are really incredible kids that against all odds are here,” said Jill Harmon, a former foster mom and co-chair of the Student Initiatives Committee, which helped coordinate the event.
“I hope for the students it just shows them that there are people out there that care for their efforts.”