The Teen Project

8 interior designers joined forces under one roof to decorate The Teen Project P.A.D. Drop in Center located in Venice Beach. The space will be transformed into a resource center for homeless teens. The Teen Project’s goal is to get these teens back to safe homes or transitional housing and get them back on our their feet. Venice Beach is home to hundreds of throw away and runaway youth and The Teen Project is driven to make a difference. While many social services organizations keep homeless kids in Venice by providing food and services for them there, The Teen Project will take it one step further and finishing the job by restoring their lives.

The project was a month long process and will open to the teens February 13. 2012.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

New Press: Houzz Post

We want to thank Natalie Myer from Houzz for posting this wonderful piece about our design team who decorated The Teen Project for founder Lauri Burns in Venice. If you would like to read the entire post please click here. Enjoy!

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Thank You Design Milk

Thank you Jamie at Design Milk for featuring our latest design charity project for The Teen Project in Venice. To read more about the post, click here. And to view more about The Teen Project blog and our list of designers and vendors, click here.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Submit your favorite Shelter!

CALL FOR ENTRIES FOR OUR NEXT CHARITY DESIGN PROJECT!!

Submit your favorite homeless shelter or charity center for us to redesign!

Vanessa Squared Productions is on the hunt for our NEXT project and we are listening to you. Please (comment here) the name of a homeless shelter in the Los Angeles area as well as a contact name, an email address, and a website (if there is one) and your submission will be carefully reviewed. The selected shelter will be announced soon!

Feel free to repost and spread the word!

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Thank you!

Thank you to everyone who came by on Friday to our opening of The Teen Project we had a great event packed with people and tons of press! The news vans were camped out for quite a while on Market St!

Thank you to all of our donations and to everyone who participated in helping out and giving your time. We all appreciate it and so will the teens!

A huge thanks goes out to the designers who created a beautiful P.A.D. for these kids. I cannot thank you enough for putting all your time and energy into this project. Thank you so much for your talent, it shows.

Above are some pics from the opening event, enjoy! (Pic with Mollie of Dmar Interiors.)

Saturday, February 11, 2012

CBS News last night!

You can view our segment from the CBS news last night here for the opening of The Teen Project! A huge thanks goes out to our fantastic designers and Lauri for giving us the space to create for these deserving teens!

Thursday, February 9, 2012

The Teen Project New Press!

The Teen Project is getting lots of press! Here is a listing of the few blogs and sites we where featured on.

YoVenice.com
CNNiReport.
And today is a great article from The Argonaut Newspaper a local newspaper in Santa Monica.

Many thanks to Christine Peak at PeakPRGroup for listing The Teen Project. We will be posting more press links as they come through!

Friday, February 3, 2012

The Teen Project Invite

Please spread the word our Teen Project opening event is February 10th from 12-3pm. Come by and see all the hard work and fun design our designers have decorated for the space! We ask that you bring your unused hotel toiletries to our event. We look forward to seeing you! Please RSVP.

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About The Teen Project - Venice

About The Teen Project

We are a volunteer centric organization. We have one full time employee paid by a direct grant. We have a team of over 60 committed volunteers working with us on a regular basis to provide the support and services for our youth. Our team consists of business owners, executives, system kids and caring community members.

The number of homeless emancipated foster youth in the United States is a growing epidemic that must be treated aggressively. To adress the magnitude of the problem, THE TEEN PROJECT has many components, Sober College Housing, The PAD Database, Teen Project Shelter Collaboration, The Meeting Places Program, The TEXT Shelter service and the National Mentoring Program. THE TEEN PROJECT protocol seeks to address the issue on all levels. There are 25,000 teens exiting the system each year to homelessness. We are a parent to the parentless, bringing them home.

Foster ends at 18. Foster care services end abruptly and these kids are forced to leave the only home they know. Most do not have a plan or a place to live. Truth of the matter is that anyone being put on the street without money, shelter or a job would have a rough time, but because of their age and mental state these kids lack knowledge necessary to rebound from this tragedy.

In most cases they leave foster care with little or no sustainable life-plan, and without the ability to reenter care. The foster parents are not obligated to prepare them and due to legal issues and deep budget cuts, their social workers are limited to what they can provide and must cut contact when they leave.

Their chances are slim. They end up couch hopping with friends. In the long run, lacking parental support or guidance, the result is reliance on reactive services - homeless shelters, jails and the welfare system.

The Teen Project picks up where the laws fall short, giving these kids a chance at life. We believe taking them from their abusive parents, telling them they are "safe" now in foster care and dumping them on the street at an age where most young adults are about to begin the most exciting journey of their life, is double dipping on the abuse.

We need to make it right for America's most vulnerable children.

Founder Lauri Burns

Lauri Burns is our Founder and serves on our Executive Board. Lauri grew up in the Juvenile Dependency System where she was a probation youth and ward of the court. Lauri turned her life around five years after emancipation and was determined to make a change for other system youth. Lauri has been taking in "At Risk Youth" for 20 years and has been serving as a foster mother to troubled teens for over 13 years.

Lauri owns a computer consulting firm and is a computer network engineer. She has been consulting to a Fortune 100 defense company for the past 11 years. Lauri is the Author of Punished for Purpose and donates 75% of her book proceeds to The Teen Project. She is a sought after inspirational speaker and owns her own publishing company where she plans to publish inspirational stories written by other foster youth.. Lauri is instrumental in our our day to day operations and the lives of our youth.

Want to Donate?

New VENICE BEACH RESOURCE CENTER

The Teen Project is a Volunteer Centric Organization

Click HERE to donate.

Steadfast in our commitment that the donations should go to direct support of our youth, our team consists of volunteers with the exception of our Executive Director (who is funded through a direct grant) from the California Wellness Foundation and our board helps to pay the Housemom.

Our team of dedicated volunteers is growing daily! We are committed neighbors, parents and business owners. We are the parent to the parentless.

Areas we need help:

New 24/7 Crisis Rescue Shelter in SANTA ANA

The FIRST 24/7 Drop in Center for At Risk Youth 18-24 in THE OC. House and 3 apartments for 18 kids per night!