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Chair-ity: Furnishing a Helping Hand for Youth Graduating Foster Care

September 04, 2024 • Guest: Maria Paparella • Episode 62

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"Adulting' is hard, but it's exponentially harder if you are 18 years old and aging out of foster care, alone and without a support system. Here in Cleveland, there's an organization helping to ease the transition by providing donated furniture and household goods to young people who have graduated from foster care and moved into a place of their own. That organization is called Chair-ity, and in this episode, we speak with its founder and executive director, Maria Paparella. Chair-ity is a non-profit based in Cleveland that works to address the unmet needs of young adults aging out of the foster care system. Maria was inspired to start Chair-ity when she was just 16 years old. Ten years later, her organization has been a much-needed friend to 662 young adults by providing essential household goods and furniture and making their first place into a home. Join us to hear Maria's story and how she is creating a community of support for young adults exiting the foster care system. Hear the many ways you can help by donating your time, talent, and treasure. The benefits go both ways. One of Maria's favorite quotes is from Ruth Bader Ginsberg: "Fight for the things you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you." Maria is living this quote, and she hopes you will join her.

Guest:
Maria Paparella, Executive Director of Chair-ity

Resources:
Follow Chair-ity on Instagram
About Chair-ity
How to Donate 
Chair-ity Success Stories
Connect with Chair-ity
Upcoming Events
Community of Hope (mentor opportunities)
Cleveland Angels (mentor opportunities)

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https://www.instagram.com/ecospeakscle

Contact us:
hello@ecospeakscle.com


Diane Bickett:

You're listening to EcoSpeak CLE, a podcast for the eco-curious in Northeast Ohio. My name is Diane Bickett and my producer is Greg Rotuno. Together we speak with local sustainability leaders and invite you to connect, learn and live with our community and planet in mind. Hello friends, do you remember your first place, your first apartment? If it was like mine, your furnishings probably were a mishmash of items secured from relatives, friends and thrift stores. These things passed down and passed along are not only functional, they help make a house a home and are really helpful for those just starting out.

Diane Bickett:

As they say, adulting is hard, but it's even harder if you're 18 years old and aging out of foster care. Every year in the US, 23,000 teens age out of the foster care system and 20,000 of those teens do so without a family or support system. 22% will experience homelessness. But here in Cleveland there's an organization helping ease the transition by providing donated furniture and household goods That organization is called Chair-ity, and joining us today is its founder and executive director, Maria Paparella. to young people who've graduated from foster care and have moved into a place of their own. Please stay with us to hear how Maria founded Charity while she was just in high school. The impact her organization has had over the last 10 years and how you and the items you no longer need can support this work. Welcome, maria.

Maria Paparella:

Thank you for having me.

Diane Bickett:

Well, I'm excited because our mutual connection, Heather Evans, connected us. She's in my Girls who Love Beer Club and she's also on your board of directors. She's like I heard about this organization. I'm involved with them now and I think you should put Maria on your podcast. I said okay.

Maria Paparella:

So here we are. That's funny. It doesn't shock me she's in that club with you.

Diane Bickett:

Yeah, Maria, first of all, I think you have a really great name. It's kind of very fun to say Thank you. You're also a very accomplished 20-something. Are you still a 20-something? Yes, I am still a 20-something. You founded a successful nonprofit which is now 10 years old. You made the Cranes Cleveland business 20 in their 20s list when you were just 23, and you've helped hundreds of young people who often have little to no support system. What led you to start this organization? When you were just in high school?

Maria Paparella:

Yeah, so I think it came from about 16 years of wanting a sibling. I started the organization when. I was 16 years old, but when I was little and all through growing up, we would go over to my grandma's house for Sunday night dinners You're very stereotypical Italian Sunday night dinners with the whole family, and I grew up in a huge Italian family and all my cousins would be there and we'd all be playing together and hanging out and I'd go home and then have to play Barbies with my dad.

Maria Paparella:

And that was like just about the worst thing, Um, and so for every birthday and every Christmas I'd ask my parents for a sibling, because I was an only child, Um, and unfortunately my parents couldn't have any more children, and so we started looking into foster care and adoption, and I grew up in Summit County and in Summit County all the children who are prospective foster children or prospective adoptive children are listed on the website. And the best way that I can really explain this is like you picked out a sibling on a website. Think of, yeah, think of like a doggy adoption website. I think it's super dehumanizing, but it's kind of how I now visualize it in my head. But we came really close to adopting a girl who at that time, we had just about everything in common Even our birth dates were just a few days apart and you know, I thought I'd found my perfect sister and unfortunately, you know, as we just started going through the process, more and more my parents learned about how challenging it could be, and I think for two working parents it was a lot more than they could take on and probably was not fair to her to bring somebody else in into our family, and so ever since then, you know, I really thought about her, what her next steps were and and what would be happening.

Maria Paparella:

I would be, you know, going to my eighth grade, graduation, and thinking about okay, what's what? What is she up to? Um, so flash forward all those years to being 16 and in high school, um, I knew I started to know what my next steps were. I knew where I was going to college and realized how much financial and emotional support I had and started to ask questions about her, like what happens?

Greg Rotuno:

what's next you?

Maria Paparella:

know, if she hasn't been adopted, I could still see her on that website, you know, maybe as a little bit of a stalker.

Maria Paparella:

Then, if I continue, to follow her but just started being, I think, pretty inquisitive about the older she got. What would be those next steps? And my parents told me about the process of aging out and, I think, the harsh reality of really being completely on your own, and I just I knew I wanted to do something to help and I just wasn't sure what that would be. And after a meeting with Summit County Children's Services, they explained that their greatest need was furniture and household goods and, more importantly, a way to get these items to the young adults. And and so I was like, okay, well, I can do that. And so I'd seen all my older cousins get their first apartment and I'm sure, like you, your first apartment, like you said, comes from a hodgepodge of items. Mom and dad gave you the bed, aunt and uncle had an extra dresser, grandma had plates, the neighbors had a lamp, and that's how I'd seen everyone else do it. And so I was like, okay, well, I can collect those items.

Maria Paparella:

I've been in plenty of basements that are full of these kind of out of season items and so I started to collect them and the county would send me referrals and we would furnish them. My goal in the first year was to do three apartments I guess I didn't tell the county that and we did 30 apartments in the first year was to do three apartments I guess I didn't tell the county that and we did 30 apartments in the first year and so it really just proved that the need was there and no one was fulfilling it.

Diane Bickett:

Wow, that's amazing.

Maria Paparella:

Thank you, and how old were you then, so I was 16. So it all happened very quickly, yeah.

Diane Bickett:

So you weren't doing normal teenage things. You were doing I'm sure you were, but you were also doing these impactful things. That's. That's really amazing, Thank you. So how many kids age out of foster care annually here in Northeast Ohio?

Maria Paparella:

So in Northeast Ohio. I did, I did some math, I dove into the numbers the other day because you were, you stumped me. So annually, about 233 young adults age out in the Northeast Ohio region. With that being said, of those 233, 136 of them are aging out in Cuyahoga County alone. Wow, following that is Summit County at 30 young adults annually. So there's quite a jump there. And then the rest just kind of follows around between about three and 10.

Diane Bickett:

Okay, and what are the I mean the obvious challenges to, in my mind, are these kids have never, probably, had a stable home environment. They don't have a family support system. They're moving into a place all their own. I mean that's really scary, and yet you're there. I'm sure there's like social service agencies, but you're not a social service agency. You're a nonprofit with a face and a passion for what you're doing. How are you helping them not only furnish their apartments but get comfortable with the idea that they're on their own?

Maria Paparella:

Yeah, so I think it's multifaceted. I think at first you know you mentioned furnish their apartments. I think for so many of us when you furnish your first apartment, again it's hand-me-downs. And then it's a few things that you're buying and maybe mom and dad or somebody else are buying you those items and I don't think you really take into account how expensive just that part is, and that is, on average, about $4,000, even if you're getting those items from thrift stores or like off of a Facebook marketplace or something like that. Then, on top of that, you need the transportation of those items, which requires a truck, an extra set of hands, items which requires a truck, an extra set of hands, gas time to do that in your schedule and the reliability of the extra set of hands.

Maria Paparella:

Most of our young adults, when they're aging out of foster care, do not have a driver's license, so they could not rent a truck, nor do they have this supportive system that they could rely on to help them move the furniture, and then, in addition, don't typically have the financial capacity to pay for a moving service or pay for somebody else to rent the truck, get the gas and all that time included, and so for us it's really important to provide that moving process so that they're not calling on somebody that they shouldn't have come back into their lives just to get a piece of furniture in the door to create a home.

Maria Paparella:

I would say. Third for us is, in this process, what we have found, and I think maybe we can get to this point about our whole process. Yeah, and they come into our program typically never having a bed that has been their own, because they've moved a handful of different times in different foster homes or to different places or back and forth from their home to another home when they get to a foster home they don't have the choice in what that room looks like, feels like where it is.

Maria Paparella:

Yeah, really good point. And so when they come into our process, first of all we have immediate conversation starting with them. So as soon as they hit our system, we're getting a text out to them because that's their preferred method of communication for just about everyone. And then we are saying, okay, as long as you have your keys, we will deliver within a week. That's promise number one.

Diane Bickett:

Okay.

Maria Paparella:

Promise number two is we're setting you up with one of our designers who is going to help you choose items from our inventory and from those pieces that you choose that will fit into your home. We will bring all those pieces that you choose Wow. And third is this is the time that we will be there and if anything changes, we're again going to communicate that, and so we give them a full list of things that are happening, when they're happening and how they're happening and exactly what we're doing. And then we're fulfilling on that promise and for a lot of these young adults, it's the first time in their life that anyone has come through on a promise for them in multiple different ways.

Diane Bickett:

Wow. Thank you for explaining some of the challenges they're facing. You're coming up on your 10-year anniversary Congratulations.

Maria Paparella:

Thank you very much.

Diane Bickett:

What has been your impact over that 10-year period? How many youth have you helped?

Maria Paparella:

Yeah, so to date, we have turned a house into a home for over 662 young adults, and I say over because I think when this airs, we will be over that number, because Tuesdays are typically our delivery dates.

Diane Bickett:

Okay, how will you be celebrating your achievement?

Maria Paparella:

So we have two different events that we'll be celebrating and maybe I can say the third is a different kind of milestone for us. But our first event will be a golf outing on September 9th at Mayfield Country Club. We're really excited for it. It's our second annual event. It's really fun and, I think, a great way for people to be active and even network in a professional capacity but also support our organization. Okay, our second event will be a casino night on November 15th at the Gordon green. Um, it's going to be a super fun event. I'm really excited, excited for it. We're just um. We just booked a really cool entertainment um to come in.

Greg Rotuno:

So I'm not.

Maria Paparella:

I'm not disclosing anything yet but you should definitely come to check it out. So that will be very exciting. And then the third way and I think this speaks to our growth over the last 10 years, not only geographically but within our mission is that hopefully by the end of this year we will be moving our Cuyahoga County warehouse location to double our warehouse footprint. So instead of being in 5,000 square feet, we'll be in 10,000 square feet, because we have just grown that much and that will allow us to one and take more furniture and two, we'll be able to provide the young adults with more of a choice because we'll be able to house more items.

Diane Bickett:

How fun for them to just go shop in your warehouse and pick things out.

Maria Paparella:

Exactly, I got it.

Diane Bickett:

It's like oh, they're free. Nice, even better. Exactly, you have a warehouse in Akron too.

Greg Rotuno:

We do.

Diane Bickett:

You're not just serving Cuyahoga County, it's a six-county area, correct?

Maria Paparella:

Six counties. Yeah, we serve Cuyahoga Lake, ashtabula, stark, medina and Summit. Wow, and you have staff. We do, yes, could not function without them and a million volunteers and a million volunteers who are all incredible and all perform a handful of different jobs. I mentioned the design volunteers who we need them on a weekly and a daily basis. We do a lot of volunteering with athletic teams or larger organizations, groups that are able to lift heavy items for some of our moving days, so actually a lot of high school boys teams and college boys teams will come out.

Maria Paparella:

Yeah, and it's also a great team building activity. And my favorite thing about what we do and I say this all the time and, okay, yes, I love serving the kids and I'm like it's so exciting but with having the volunteers come in, especially the volunteers who are peers to the young adults that we serve, and having them experience this totally different world that they've ever experienced, and not just talking at them because I mean, as you can hear, I can talk about it all day long.

Maria Paparella:

Um, and that's not going to process for process for them, but for them to actually see it and feel it and be there is so impactful and I, you know, like any teenage boy, they walk in and they're not really talking or wanting to engage, and at the end, they're asking a million questions about what happens and how this works and what's going to happen to them.

Maria Paparella:

And are they working, are they in school? And I think at the end of the day, they start to really envision themselves there and I think that is one of the biggest impacts that we can make. It's just education and advocacy for this population.

Diane Bickett:

You're really living the quote that you had on your Cranes Cleveland business profile for the 20 in their 20s, which is a RBG quote fight for the things you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you. Nicely done, Nicely done. So I understand. So what's the process? I have a couch or a table or whatever used items to donate. How does that work?

Maria Paparella:

Yeah, so first we will receive the donated furniture. That happens by the donor filling out a form on our website. They submit it with pictures and everything for us. That just helps ensure that when we go out we're actually going to be getting those items and that we can bring them back to our warehouse. We can't always take everything. We know what our kids like and what they don't like and we know what, what's gonna leave and what's gonna stay right.

Diane Bickett:

No floral couches.

Maria Paparella:

No, none of the grandma couches but we actually had an awesome donation, um, that is, couch covers that are solid print, oh, and so we took those in because we can then repurpose those sofas. I think almost all of our kids want a gray, a black or a tan couch and that's just about it, and so if we can get these couch covers to repurpose those, it's awesome, and so many of them are such great quality too that it's so much better than having like one off of Amazon that's going to break in two months, so sorry, sidetracked. The second would be that we would pick up the donation. Third is we receive the foster referral form, like I mentioned, that comes from one of our several different community partners, and then immediately we contact that referral and schedule their delivery for about a week from their referral date to give them enough time to then, five, connect with the volunteers and shop our virtual inventory, and then, six, we deliver the furniture and set up their whole apartment. So something that's really unique about our services is that not only do we deliver it, but then we bring it into the apartment, set it up, hang up the photos, put down the rugs, put it you know, lay out the furniture in a way that makes sense.

Maria Paparella:

I mean, I think, to you and me. You know, laying out a living room seems pretty basic, but sometimes when you're you don't grow up in what we would consider the standard house or the standard environment. Things like that just aren't sometimes even innate to them, and just the flow of how things should be laid out is different. And then seven is just you know part, the creating the home part, making sure that they have everything that they need that again we're hanging up the items, laying everything out correctly. And then eight is making connections. And this is something that in the past about year and a half, is newer to our process.

Maria Paparella:

And, as I mentioned earlier, you know, the promises that we fulfill for these young adults create such a strong bond to our volunteers or our staff. And when we follow up and say, "'hey, do you need anything else', we have them fill out a little survey. They tell us that they need things that they haven't told other people that they need, whether it's utility assistance, or I really want to get my driver's license, or I actually want to go to nail tech school, or, you know, I need help making sure my ends meet, or my baby needs X, y and Z, and it's pretty cool that we get to be that network for them and connect them with other partners that we have, because we're so foster care specific. We have partners that are really specific to working with former foster youth and are trauma-informed that way, okay so I think that speaks to the power of what you're doing.

Diane Bickett:

I mean, you're not just like setting up their apartment and walking out the door. You become more of their people. You're their people For sure, for sure, and you're helping them beyond. So do you have get togethers, Do you connect? You know where are they after a year, a couple?

Maria Paparella:

of years. Yeah, so we definitely keep tabs on them as time goes on. Like you mentioned, we are not a social services agency.

Maria Paparella:

We're just a nonprofit and we do have a small staff. So part of making the connections is also connecting them to a mentoring program. There's a few that we'll connect them with, based off of what their needs are, and those mentors can then stay with them longer, can give them more one-on-one attention and really hold their hand. That way and because we're a trusted partner of these young adults if we're making these warm introductions, they're way more likely to be sticky to those mentors.

Diane Bickett:

Yeah, and you're young yourself, so you're probably less intimidating then Well, and I think that's so important.

Maria Paparella:

That's why I love when our young men do the deliveries, because I think it's you know, it's just like a friend coming in and helping you out, get your place ready instead of you know, some Living in this adult-centric world.

Diane Bickett:

Yeah, exactly that's great. Financial donations I love on your website. Because you're a nonprofit, You're probably always in need. You mentioned a couple of fundraisers earlier 25 bucks provides comfort, $50 dignity. 100 provides confidence, 250 provides independence and $500 provides success. Yes, I love the donation levels and $175 helps you rent a truck so you can go pick up the materials. You don't have your own trucks.

Maria Paparella:

We don't have our own trucks, we do rent. We don't need them quite frequently enough for it to make sense, okay frequently enough for it to make sense, okay.

Diane Bickett:

So charity, which I should have said before, is spelled c-h-a-i-r, dash, i-t-y. Yes, honey, and um, you also have an amazon wish list where people can buy those sofa covers and other things that you need.

Maria Paparella:

Yep we update that pretty frequently just based off of what our need. Is it really ebbs and flows? Based off of donations coming in from people donating gently used furniture items to. Sometimes we have really specific furniture needs, like small dinette tables that are one or two topped, or even high top dinette tables that are really rarely donated to us, and those things we'll ask for on our Amazon wishlist. I will say if you see any furniture items on our Amazon wishlist, I always encourage people to look for those on like a Facebook marketplace or thrift them instead of going and buying them on Amazon that way.

Diane Bickett:

Yeah, cause there'll be better quality. You're supporting the reuse network. Yeah, all the things. Do you have any corporate sponsors that support you?

Maria Paparella:

Yeah, we have several Um. I don't think I can probably name them all Um's, okay, but yeah, look at our websites and different sponsors also sponsor different events and make different events possible for us and make different homes possible for us. Our corporate sponsors are really amazing because so many of them also, while they donate to us monetarily, they also donate to us with their time and their energy, whether that's doing pro bono work for us so that we don't have to hire extra staff, or coming into our warehouse or going out on deliveries and helping us make sure that we can really get all those volunteer hours and that just us as a small staff don't have time to do.

Diane Bickett:

Yeah, lifeblood like. Are you familiar with Humboldt Design Cleveland? Yeah, we interviewed Deb Eastburn a couple years ago. Similar work, but they're more broad, I think, in terms of serving a variety of ages of people. But their angel corporate supporter is Progressive and that's where I think they get a lot of their volunteers. But what other opportunities for volunteering? What do you need people to help you with if they have time available?

Maria Paparella:

Yeah, so we have a handful of different opportunities and, I think, an opportunity that's really available for everyone. Just, you know, despite um, if you're able to lift a lot or you're not.

Maria Paparella:

Um. So, like I mentioned, there is the delivery component. Um, I would say you have to be pretty physically able and strong to do that. Second is in our warehouse, on probably a bi-weekly basis, we have our volunteer groups come in and do sorting. So we do get in kitchen goods and we'll have our volunteers sort those items and then repackage them into ready-go sets that our delivery guys can just grab and go on the truck.

Maria Paparella:

Second is, like I said, we have a whole virtual inventory of stuff constantly coming in and going out, and sometimes it comes in and goes out quicker than we can keep track of, and so we try to audit it at least once a month to make sure that, you know, one of the young adults isn't seeing a purple sofa online and saying I really want that, and then we go to the warehouse and the purple sofa is gone. So to really make sure that all of the choices are there and and able they're able to access those um. Third would be diy. So sometimes we get items in that aren't quite up to our standards but we know they can get there, um, such as like a dresser that needs the top refinishing or a lamp that we might just need to spray paint a solid color so that the young adult would be like, oh, that would be cool to have in my house, and so we host those volunteer events pretty often as well, if you're handy, in any other way too.

Maria Paparella:

We always have things that need screws tightened or things that need to be built out or something like that. And then I'm trying to think what else At all of our events, we always need extra hands there, whether that's helping people check in, trying to sell raffle tickets. Get engaged in the mission that way. And then finally, like I mentioned, our design volunteers, so meeting with our young adults and helping them pick out furniture. That position is really cool because it can be done totally, virtually, totally in person, or a hybrid of the two, and so it's really just up to the volunteer and the young adult to figure out what's going to work for them.

Diane Bickett:

So many ways to help. Do you need like grant writers too and that type of admin? I?

Maria Paparella:

think we have that under control, but I mean because we're a small organization, if this is a mission that really connects to you and you feel like you have something you want to offer, we're always willing to take somebody's extra time or extra hands and put them to work to allow some of us to do some other things that we've been wanting to do and we just don't have time. Okay, very good.

Diane Bickett:

How do people get in touch with you? Your?

Maria Paparella:

website and your social media. Yeah, I would say the best way is to go through our website and do the contact page if you want to ask something specific. If you're looking to donate time, talent or treasure, we have a donate button on our page and those three different ways are listed there and you can just go through and click a button right away and it will lead you to that.

Diane Bickett:

Okay, should we end with a little tip time? We always end up with a tip time, perfect, which, I think. What I would like to ask is you mentioned earlier a mentoring program, if people want to get involved more directly with these young people. What are the names of those or how did they, how did those work?

Maria Paparella:

Yeah, so we work with a few um. Cleveland angels is a part of a national organization. It's they um go city to city.

Maria Paparella:

Um Angels services a multitude of different things that have to do with foster care, but one of their newest programs is supporting youth who are aging out by connecting them to a mentor. This program specifically is a one-on-one mentor, which isn't right for every young adult to just have one person, but it is awesome for some, and so they will partner with those young adults first and then find a mentor who matches them through their database of people who have decided they would want to be mentors. One of our other partners is Community of Hope, which is a Cuyahoga County-based organization as well, and they provide, as I said in their name, a community of people. Typically, I think, it's about five adults to one young adult, and each of those five adults support the young adult in a different manner. Five adults support the young adult in a different manner, and then there's a few other organizations, but those two are really specific to youth aging out of foster care.

Diane Bickett:

Super important to help reduce homelessness in this population. I think I mentioned earlier 22% of those aging out not the ones you work with but nationally do experience homelessness. So I think you're doing a lot to help reduce that statistic here.

Maria Paparella:

Yeah, and I think just navigate life in general. I mean now, being 26, I still call my mom for just about everything, and you know, just to check in and be like, okay, how do I do this part of my taxes, you know, just having somebody else to tell you I still have a 26 year old calling me about that.

Maria Paparella:

Yeah, or you know how do I fix, fix this thing that that's going on at home, and and I do, I need a wrench or a drill or what even is a wrench and a drill. And yeah, I think just to have somebody else in your corner to talk to, even if you're just having a hard day, is so important.

Diane Bickett:

Yeah Well, as they say, adulting is hard. Thank you for making it easier. Thank you, thank you for what you're doing.

Maria Paparella:

It's really beautiful work, thank you.

Greg Rotuno:

Thank you very much we hope you've enjoyed this episode of eco speak cle. You can find our full catalog of episodes on spotify, apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes are available the first and third tuesday of each month. Please follow eco speak cle on facebook and Instagram and become part of the conversation. If you would like to send us feedback and suggestions, or if you'd like to become a sponsor of EcoSpeak CLE, you can email us at hello at EcoSpeakCLEcom. Stay tuned for more important and inspiring stories to come.

People on this episode

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Diane Bickett

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Greg Rotuno

Co-host