Dec My Dorm: Sending Foster Youth to College With Everything They Need

For most college freshmen, move-in day is a family affair—parents hauling boxes, siblings making the bed, someone hanging a poster on the wall. For foster youth aging out of the system, that scene can look very different. Many arrive alone, carrying their belongings in a trash bag.

That image is what set Jill Franklin in motion. After meeting a young woman at UCLA who had attended Berkeley with nothing while her dormmates unpacked with their families around them, Franklin decided the gap between getting foster youth to college and actually setting them up for success was a worthy endeavor.

She started simply—an Amazon wishlist posted to her Facebook page and a handful of friends who bought a few things. That first year, the effort reached 20 to 30 students. Then she connected with the Connecting A Caring Community, and the program found its footing. The annual Dec My Dorm event drew 120 students its first year, 140 the year after, with a goal of 160 this year.

The model is straightforward: volunteers collect donated dorm supplies—bedding, organizers, whiteboards, and other essentials—and students come to choose what they need. Items on the Amazon wishlist range from $7 to the low $30s, keeping the barrier to participation low for community donors. What the students receive, though, carries weight beyond the dollar amount.

Many of these young people grew up in foster homes where they had no say over their surroundings, cycling through spaces that never quite felt like their own. Volunteers describe watching students who seem almost stunned by the volume of support they're receiving, most of it brand new.

The students themselves are heading to some of the most competitive institutions in the country: UC and Cal State campuses, historically Black colleges and universities, as well as Stanford. They cleared every obstacle the system placed in front of them. Dec My Dorm is there for the step that comes after.