Harger: Supporting foster kids this Christmas through Treehouse

Tomorrow is one of the most important days of the year at KIRO Newsradio. It’s our annual fundraiser for Treehouse, an organization that supports foster kids across Washington.

I need to tell you about a little boy.

When I was young, a family member had a crisis. This little boy, someone I knew, ended up in the foster care system. I watched what happened to him. The confusion in his eyes. The way he stopped trusting that anything would stay the same. He’d go to bed in one house, not knowing if he’d wake up somewhere else.

That feeling of security most of us take for granted? It just vanished from his life.

Right now, tonight, thousands of kids across Washington are sleeping in a stranger’s home. They’re wondering if their mom is OK. If they’ll see their brother again. If this is the house where they’ll finally get to stay, or if next week they’ll be packing their things into a garbage bag again.

A garbage bag. That’s how many of these kids move from place to place. Everything they own. In a trash bag.

In a few weeks, families all over this area will wake up Christmas morning. Kids will run downstairs. There will be traditions, inside jokes, and that special breakfast mom makes every year. There will be people who’ve known them since they were born, who remember every birthday, who make them feel like they belong.

Now imagine Christmas morning when you’re nine years old, and you’re living with your fourth family this year. People who are kind, maybe, but they’re strangers. There are no traditions. No inside jokes. Nobody who remembers what you were like as a baby because nobody’s known you that long.

That’s the reality for thousands of Washington kids.

And it gets worse. Kids who go through foster care are three times more likely to end up in jail as adults. Up to 50% will experience homelessness before they turn 24. Half of them. We talk about homelessness on the news every day. Many of those people sleeping on our streets? They were once that little boy or girl in a stranger’s home, just trying to survive childhood.

But here’s what gives me hope. Treehouse has been helping these kids for more than 35 years. They make sure foster kids have Christmas presents so the morning doesn’t feel completely empty. But they do so much more.

They provide tutoring so these kids can actually graduate high school. Right now, only half of them do. They give them clothes that fit, school supplies, a chance to play sports or join a club like other kids. They help teenagers aging out of the system learn how to find an apartment, get a job, and do the things most of us learned from our parents.

Adults who grew up in foster care have told us that Treehouse made them feel seen. Made them feel like someone cared. For some, it was the first time in their lives they felt that.

That little boy I mentioned? He had people fighting for him. But those scars don’t just disappear. He still struggles to make connections, to trust that good things will last. The experience marked him. But so many kids don’t even have people fighting for them at all.

Tomorrow, you can be that person. Call us. Donate. Show a child that someone out there cares that they exist. Show them you care they exist.

And that’s my commentary for Dec. 9. Text the show at (888) 973-5476 or leave a comment at MyNorthwest.

Charlie Harger is the host of “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio. You can read more of his stories and commentaries here. Follow Charlie on X and email him here. 

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