Heart of Detroit: Getting kids back on track

DETROIT – For more than a decade she has taken to the Detroit streets, usually alone. She is trying to save young lives.  Stephanie Taylor is Outreach Manager for Covenant House, which offers struggling or homeless youth everything from shelter, school, food and counseling. Taylor and Covenant house want to get kids back on track.  The first step is trust. Some of our young kids have been lied to so many times.  They have been told we can help you and you don't help them and they get abused or mistreated and then they find it was better off on the street. 

Taylor admits she takes a chance recruiting alone on the streets. "We pray everyday.  I tell everybody this could be your child. If anything was to happen to you, you would want a van out there to tell that kid I am here." Taylor stays at it because of what she sees in the young people, remembering the gratitude one kid showed at a simple meal.  

"It was just a piece of chicken and some string beans and he said the last time I ate something like this was two Thanksgiving's ago and then even though that was his first meal he turned around and he said would you like some too? When you hear a kid say I don't know what I was going to do, I gave up, I am glad you came it puts something in your minds says 'I got to keep pushing'." 

Reaching out to save our most precious currency – our children – Stephanie Taylors throws a lifeline to the heart of Detroit.