Jonathan Barbosa doesn’t like to think about where he would be today if San Diego’s Promises2Kids hadn’t stepped into his life. Not because the answer is hard to summon up, but because it’s way too easy.
“It makes me tear up a bit, but if it wasn’t for them, I would be in jail or prison. I had no male role models at home, so I looked for male role models out in the street. I did some stupid things when I was young,” the 21-year-old San Diego City College student said.
“Thank God I had those influences to wake me up and tell me, ‘This is really not the life you want to live. You have more to offer than this. You can do what you want to do.’ Hearing those words really touched me. It made me feel like someone genuinely cared for me. It made me feel human.”
Founded in 1981 as the Child Abuse Prevention Foundation, Promises2Kids gives former and current San Diego County foster youth the tools, support and opportunities they need to deal with the challenges of their complicated pasts and to create a healthy, happy future.
Every year, Promises2Kids helps more than 3,000 current and former foster youth with everything from life-skills training and college scholarships to funds for small, but precious things, like birthday gifts, graduation caps and gowns and musical instruments.
When he was 10 years old, Barbosa was a foster kid who needed help. And as he got older, he would need even more.
After his mother’s partner severely beat one of Barbosa’s older sisters and she threatened to tell someone about it, his mother and her partner took the sister down to Tijuana and left her there. They told Barbosa and his other two older siblings that if they didn’t keep quiet, the same thing would happen to them.
Fortunately, Barbosa’s other sister spoke up anyway. The kids were taken to the A.B. and Jessie Polinsky Children’s Center, where they stayed for a few days before their grandparents agreed to take them in. Barbosa had his first Promises2Kids experience three years later, when the organization caught his adolescent attention in a very strategic way.
“They do this amazing thing where they do a back-to-school shopping event and a Christmas event, and they give you supplies for school and money to get what you want for Christmas,” Barbosa remembered. “At first, I didn’t pay too much attention to them because I was a kid. But when I heard they were going to help me out with supplies and gifts, I was all for it.”
Still, it would take a few more years and some major intervention before Barbosa was ready to take advantage of the life-changing support Promises2Kids was prepared to offer.
At 17, Barbosa was connected with the appropriately named Angel Flores,a counselor who came to him through San Diego Youth Services’ Independent Living Skills program. Barbosa had already been removed from Serra High School and Hoover High School, but with Flores’ support and friendly nagging, he graduated from Diego Hills Charter School in 2018.
Barbosa also got encouragement and help from social worker Rafael Commer, who joined Flores in giving Barbosa the sense of connection and family he was missing at home.
Then, at a seminar at San Diego City College, Barbosa found out about the Promises2Kids’ Guardian Scholars program, which gives foster youth academic scholarships, mentoring support and other tools to help them with college. And when he was accepted into Guardian Scholars, Barbosa also became part of Youth2Youth, which gives its participants paid positions as mentors for other foster youth.
“These mentors give foster youth hope. They can say, ‘Foster care isn’t forever. Let me help you plan for what life will be like later,’” said Promises2Kids CEO Tonya Torosian. “Sometimes, they’ll help them buy their first car. They’ll talk to them about relationships. They’ll take them out to look at different career opportunities. Or they may just sit down with them and say, ‘I once sat in the same seat you are in, and I am here to tell you that you can make it.’”
At the moment, Barbosa is working with eight students between the ages of 18 and 20. He is there to pass along the practical things he learned in Promises2Kids’ leadership program, like how to budget your money and what to say in a job interview. He is there to listen without judging and to push without being pushy.
He is also there to lead by example. The troubled kid who got booted from two high schools is now a Promises2Kids success story, and there is room on that higher road for many, many more.
“I want to say to my students, ‘I used to feel like I had no one in my corner, but you do. I’m here to help. I want to be the person who can help you achieve your goals. With a little bit of elbow grease and compassion, we can achieve anything,’” said Barbosa, who plans to go to SDSU to study social work.
“I am here to lift them up, and I will be with them every step of the way.”
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