In honor of Mother's Day, HuffPost Impact presents It Just Takes One, a series on children and the tutors, mentors, guardians and others who have made a difference in their lives. We'll be featuring a new story every day through Mother's Day.
As a baby in the early 1980s, Danielle "Dani" Shriver was put up for adoption -- moving from foster family to foster family as an infant, she had a hard time finding a stable environment, or even a mother and father to give her time and attention. There are no photos of her before she was six months old.
She rebelled from foster parents, adoptive parents, and in the group homes where she lived until age 18.
"I was in places where people didn't care about me," she told me. "They treated me just as another source of income. By the time I was 18 I was like, 'Crap, they're putting me out. I have no independent living skills.'"
Like tens of thousands of children across the country, Dani lived on the streets for several years, struggling to find a steady job and a suitable home for her infant child.
Dani Shriver was homeless and pregnant at age 19.
"I was able to beg for money and hustle some sunglasses or teddy bears from downtown L.A. districts," she said. "I heard about a program for 16 to 24-year-olds who needed vocational training."
She was able to get a job at a court-reporting agency, doing some data entry and filing. By her early 20s, she managed to get off the streets.
Now, Dani spends her free time giving back, helping the children that remind her of her younger self. She works with StandUp For Kids (featured previously on Impact), as a homeless outreach volunteer and goods provider. It started off slow -- she did donation drives once a week, some orientation and training for those who didn't have experience with homeless youths. But, after a time, she wanted to do more and more.
"I'm so passionate about it," she said. "There's no way I'm going to give it up."
Despite the growing homeless youth problem, many Americans still turn their attention to other issues, believing that these young people are addicted to drugs and looking for a handout. Dani responds to this criticism:
"People have these preconceptions about homeless kids that really boggled my mind. [I've written about] common misnomers that these kids are thieves and drug addicts."
Though many of the young homeless do fall prey to drugs and prostitution, it's hardly an accurate way to characterize the entire population.
There are more than one million homeless children in America. Photo by LaurenV, flickr.
Dani told me about a young woman named "T." She has a son named Lyric and all of her friends are on the street.
"She's got herself into a program and her son is in Headstart, [a pre-school and daycare system for homeless children.] I see her almost every week. She changed my mind and made me a little more humble about my advice."
After having written stories for HuffPost Impact for over six months, I sometimes forget how the people who make the greatest impact are the ones who dedicate themselves to something to which they have a personal connection. For Dani Shriver, StandUp For Kids is the perfect complement. Volunteering has changed her life and she strongly encourages others to do so.
"I think that volunteering gives you more depth as a person because you have to be in someone else's shoes and be empathetic," she told me. "It gets deeper the more you volunteer -- you become a more understanding person as you learn more about their lives, doing good in something you believe in."
In the future, Dani hopes to work for a nonprofit (right now she provides marketing support for a small business).
"I want to get into a system that I think is broken and try to help."
StandUp For Kids provides assistance to homeless youth and gives them the resources to get jobs, homes and a more stable life. Text STANDUP to 85944 to donate $5.
Note: Huffington Post's Impact section is published in collaboration with Causecast, an organization which provides online tools to nonprofits. StandUp For Kids has a profile on Causecast.org, though they are not paying clients and Causecast in no way benefits from any donations given to this organization.