“Dream big , Steve, dream big!” Byron Lewis, just before he passed away he 2017…
The story begins in 2010 while serving on the Board of Neighbors for Kids (NFK) in Depoe Bay, Oregon. We just opened the new 8000sf building on 101 just south of City Hall…
NFK was a dream for the City of Depoe & our small rural community, inspired by Loretta Hoagland in 2000…
Loretta watched the kids hang out from her porch in town. The kids where there after school without supervision or anything else to do, it seemed to her…
They were smoking weed & maybe doing other stuff they shouldn’t be doing, with too much time on their hands…
Loretta started an ‘after school’ program at one of the local churches in town. It was there “The Miracle for Kids” was born.
You read the whole story atneighborsforkids.org. I collaborated with the Board & wrote this story…
The rest of the story…
Byron Lewis, co-founder, CFLAT, and I served on the Board. We were seated in January 2010, a few months before the new building was completed…
It was there, in that moment, the dream of CFLAT was born. I wanted to tell my story on behalf of these struggling kids who seemed to be without a whole lot of love & kindness at home.
The kids reminded of myself when I was growing up in the 40’s & 50’s after WWII ended. They were sad…
I started ro write my book, Reconciliation a Son’s Story. I started to talk to my pal, Byron Lewis, one day over coffee, at Pirates in Depoe Bay. He looked at me and said, “Steve, let’s write your story together. It’s my story too.”
Later, while we were doing research & writing Reconciliation, he also said, while reasoning, as he always did, “Steve, you must do a website and write a “Blog.” I looked at him with a smirk and laugh, “what the hell is that duude!”
In that moment the the dream of CFLAT was born. He guided me in this tedious, painful but loving process.
I started this blog and begin to write my story, Byron’s story, and the stories of kids who were not loved and hugged at home, just like us…
This is CFLAT in 2022, 10 years later, still writing these stories. The stories that must be told. For it is not possible to heal from intergenerational trauma unless we know the roots of trauma…
