Designer helps foster kids create a successful future

A driving force in the fashion industry is designing ways to help foster youth enter the workforce.

With the launch of Mecca Clothing in 1993, Tony Shellman helped define what became known as "hip-hop" style. Three years later, he founded the Enyce Clothing Company. An immediate success, the company’s rapid growth attracted customers as well as Liz Claiborne Inc., which purchased the line in 2003. Clearly, Shellman excels at helping new ventures get off the ground.

Sustaining his star power in the clothing business is a legacy of love and encouragement from his adoptive parents. Appreciative of his own opportunities, he’s reaching out to support other youth from foster care hoping to make a splash in the workforce.

Shellman has helped to launch a new workplace initiative with the National Foster Care Month Partnership. Organizations across the nation are promoting internships, mentor relationships and job programs for youth who are leaving the foster care system.

While awareness of the initiative will be highlighted during May, celebrated as National Foster Care Month, Shellman—who was himself given up at birth—sees his commitment as having a lasting impact.

"This isn’t just Foster Care Month," he said. "This is foster care life, about creative opportunities that will help kids long term."

Knowing his life would be very different had he remained in care longer or gone to a different family, Shellman’s interest in foster youth is heartfelt. "I got such a good deal in life. There are so many who don’t. I realized that I could help these kids have a voice."

Shellman hopes to educate business and creative leaders about the important contributions foster youth can make when given education, mentoring and support. He also will develop internships and opportunities for youth in the fashion industry.

"I hope to make change, not for my benefit, but for the kids," he said. "If my efforts help one of the kids aging out of foster care this year, then I’ve done my job."

Other foster care alumni are lending their support to the workplace initiative, including actress Victoria Rowell, star of the daytime drama "The Young and the Restless." "My foster parents encouraged me to follow my dream," Rowell said. "Now I want to help foster youth have the chance to do all they can in life." She already has secured jobs for former foster youth at CBS Television and Viacom, and provided college scholarships through her own foundation, the Rowell Foster Children’s Positive Plan.

"Each year, 20,000 children leave the foster care system, said Raymond L. Torres, executive director of Casey Family Services, the direct service arm of the Annie E. Casey Foundation and a member of the National Foster Care Month Partnership. "Communities must commit themselves to supporting these youngsters in accessing meaningful opportunities for work."

For Shellman, supporting foster youth in the workplace is about more than a future paycheck. It’s about fostering greatness. "We don’t know who will be the next Einstein or Bill Gates," he said. "He or she could be a foster kid today who just needs an opportunity to show how great he or she is."

For information on how to held children in foster care, call Casey Family Services at (888) 799-KIDS.

This story provided by North American Precis Syndicate.