“I was kinda lost. I was bouncing around from house to house.”

Gavin walked into The Coffee Oasis early last November, thumping a massive backpack onto the floor. After dropping out of school and unsuccessfully looking for work, he was tired of moving from place to place. Within a day he moved into our Oasis Hope Home.

Gavin settled in, connected with a case manager, and began a job internship at our Bremerton Café. It quickly became his favorite part of the day. He became a familiar face in the restaurant and Oasis Center, spending Thanksgiving and Christmas eating dinner and building gingerbread houses with the rest of the CoffeeOasis family.

But I learned how to be positive, how to see the good and not just the bad. You guys showed me there’s a chance.

A few months ago the future hadn’t seemed so hopeful. In fact, even though he enjoyed his job internship Gavin considered quitting. “I have a habit of self-sabotaging if things start to get too good. But I learned how to be positive,” he said, “how to see the good and not just the bad. You guys showed me there’s a chance.” Deciding to hold onto something good often seems foolhardy to many hurting youth; leaving before you have a chance to be disappointed seems safer than hoping for the future. But constant encouragement from his coworkers helped Gavin finish his internship, and we celebrated his hard-won graduation in January! Gavin still consistently comes in to volunteer in the kitchen, and has been an immense help to our staff. You can often overhear him telling others about The Coffee Oasis. “I would recommend hurting kids to come to The Coffee Oasis. This is a good place for them.”