Sanctuary 212 helping MIGHT fund homeless shelter for teens

Spencer Brown is seeing the fruition of a goal he has been working toward since he was a high school junior: establishing a shelter for homeless teens.

Brown and his non-profit organization Sanctuary 212 — or S212 — is donating $20,781 to MIGHT Technology and Learning Center today, aiding MIGHT’s plans to give homeless Lawton teens a place to call their own. MIGHT’s immediate goal is converting the gymnasium at their complex to housing, initially to serve 12 teenage boys (space for 12 girls is in the immediate future, when funding is available).

“That was always the end goal: establish a shelter,” Brown said of S212.

Brown started his non-profit organization in his junior year of high school. While the organization has done many things over the years, its main objective has always been combatting homelessness in Lawton Public Schools. S212 has stayed focused, raising almost $50,000 in the last six years for the cause while also doing things such as installing a washer and dryer for those youth at Lawton High School, or ensuring food is available to homeless teens during school breaks when free breakfast and lunch isn’t available.

But a home has always been the most apparent need, Brown said.

“These kids have no place to stay,” he said.

While Brown and his father Mike Brown have worked hard to keep S212’s focus, they do not have the expertise to take the next step in their mission. Enter Bernita Taylor, CEO of MIGHT. Brown said he was intrigued that Taylor shares the same vision he and his father have, and also acknowledge her superior skills in the area of non-profit. That made the decision easy, as far as donating funds to MIGHT while also allowing S212 to become part of MIGHT.

Numbers support Brown’s argument for a teen shelter. He said when he first started working with LPS and its homeless teen population in 2016-2017, a little over 700 youth in the district were considered homeless. By March 2023, that number was more than 1,200.

“It’s definitely an issue that needs some care,” he said, adding Taylor and MIGHT have the expertise to identify what teens need and what the Department of Human Services will require of a youth shelter, while the Browns and S212 will step into another role. “We’ll take a fund-raising mindset from now on.”

Taylor said the goal is have the project completed by October.

“We don’t want any kids out there in the cold this year,” she said.

S212’s donation is part of the $180,000 cost of renovating the building’s gymnasium to house those first 12 teenage boys, and matched with $50,000 donated by an anonymous donor, puts MIGHT closer to its goal (a gala is planned for Aug. 28).

Taylor said donations are critical because that is how MIGHT will fund its projects. The only fee the entity charges is related to its childcare program; there is no charge for teen and adult programs.

“We’re stretched pretty thin,” Taylor said. “So, we have to depend on these donations.”

Taylor said the shelter is a critical part of MIGHT’s mission.

“There’s been a lot of talk over the years, but no action,” she said, of local efforts to create a shelter specifically for youth, adding that once those involved with MIGHT learned of the need, “we started planning immediately.”

The goal remains to have the shelter ready for its young residents by October, but Taylor would love to see it done by September.  But that means coordinating the construction process while continuing to raise funds to cover the cost.

“No matter what, we’ll figure it out,” she said.