(Seguin) — They say it takes a village to raise kids and here in Guadalupe County, it will very soon be “The Village” that will be stepping up to help love and protect foster kids.
Doors to Guadalupe County’s first ever emergency shelter, Trulight Youth Village, for foster children will be opening its doors thanks to the efforts of TruLight 127 Ministries. The non-profit organization, founded by Sondra Ajasin, has over the years worked steadily to be in its current position of offering an immediate home for those children removed from abuse and neglect. 
A dedication ceremony and opportunity for the public to tour the facility is being planned for this Sunday.
Ajasin, who is excited about bringing this shelter to Guadalupe County, says it’s important that when a child is removed that they remain close to home.
“We see time and time again that kids get shipped out to different areas, different cities, different regions — totally, different regions. We are talking Houston sometimes and Austin, different areas where these kids can’t be close to home and it’s really hard for parents who are trying to get their kids back. It’s hard for them to get to see those kids when they get shipped out to different areas and so bringing The Village to our county is such a need to me– to have those kids here, have them safe, have them loved and have our community wrapped around them so we are really excited to be coming to this area. We’ve been in the area as a child placing agency for almost three years now. We are pretty excited. We’ve been able to help almost 400 kids in that three years which is a pretty big number to me and to the state itself to be able to help keep those kids safe and loved and just to do this next step — to bring them here in those emergency situations when we can’t find a foster family and that’s what The Village is about. We believe a foster family is priority but let’s just face it, there’s a lack of foster families in our area and so this will keep them here, keep them close to us and provide everything and not just a bed or a cot or a CPS office but an actual home living environment for these kids,” said Ajasin.
Ajasin says there’s always heartbreak when a child is forcibly removed from a home and hopes this new shelter will be less traumatizing especially for sibling groups.
“If the kid gets removed here in our county, they start calling. They call all the agencies out and try to find a home as close to their area of living as they can. That’s priority but we don’t have a lot of foster homes over here that can take a lot of kids and I will tell you now that sometimes there’s six, seven siblings in one family that get removed and that’s really hard to keep those kids together when that happens. Sometimes it’s even hard to keep two and three together let alone larger groups and so if they can’t find a foster family then they start looking for those shelters. There is none close to here except for down in San Antonio, up in the Austin area and places like that. So, those kids who can’t find a foster family, that’s where they end up,” said Ajasin.
Ajasin says the search for the property has been a long journey but believes this shelter is exactly where it needs to be.
“About a year ago, I was like okay God, I feel like it’s time to start this process for this shelter. There’s just too much that we need. I’m sick of hearing kids sleeping in the office. I’m tired of reading these emails of sibling groups of five going to five different homes. We just need something that we can temporarily do to help them. So, me and my husband who is my right hand man, we began the search for land. We looked in Cibolo, in Schertz and we were just every where and Kendra Townsend is one of my friends and a realtor and she just messaged me one day and said “I just think you need to come look at this property. It’s been on the market for awhile and I said ‘okay, we will go see.’ At this point, I got my hopes up. I got my hopes down. I got my hopes up, got my hopes down and we walked on this property and my husband and I just looked at each other and said, this is it! We are going to take another leap of faith and see what God is going to do. We had some wonderful donors. We had saved every penny that we could. We don’t spend any money on administrative costs. We haven’t had to at this point. It’s a non-profit. You have to pay your staff but at this point, we were able to save every nickel and dime that we could and was able to put down a good chunk of money on that land and so since mid-August, we’ve been working to make sure it is ready and safe for kids,” said Ajasin.
Ajasin says she encourages individuals, groups and others to join TruLight for this Sunday afternoon’s dedication. She says the shelter is the evolution of an effort that first started with supplying tangible needs to kinship and foster families. It then grew by serving as an official child placement agency and now has come full circle with this latest endeavor of providing a safe place for area kids.
“You can come in. You can ask me questions. You can walk through the two houses that we have ready. They are finishing up right now. They are hanging pictures and making beds and getting them ready for kids to come and so this weekend, we are inviting the community to come out. Ask us questions. Tour the facility. Find out what you can do to help these kids. We will need help from with bringing out clothing donations to those kids and let me stop right there to say not your old stuff that you don’t want to put on anymore but donations that these kids can use, that they will be proud to wear. Because when they come in the middle of the night, they have nothing so that’s what you want to find out more about how you can help out in that area, how you can help financially, how you can help us build our next two houses, help us build our program which we really need — whatever you want to find out, this weekend is a great way to come out and get some answers about the village,” Ajasin. “We are on Linne Road. So, it’s 3925 Linne Road in Seguin, Texas. It’s right off of (Interstate) 10. It’s not hard to find. Once you exit 10, it’s literally right there on the hill. We will have the gate open. We will have some bounce houses out there. We will have some food out there. We’ll have information and we will be ready for anybody who wants to come out,” said Ajasin.
Since it’s initial start up in 2015, the organization has celebrated 45 adoptions and currently oversees 135 children through its foster placement agency. Ajasin says if anything, she hopes the operation of the new children’s shelter will help shed more awareness on the need for foster families and why as a community, people should care.
“CPS tries to find family members first. They don’t just go out there and yank a kid and throw them in foster care. They first try to find a family member. If there is no family member then they have to look for foster care and that’s when we are supposed to step in especially Christians. As Christians, we are called to be that family when there is no other family for that kid and honestly, we have failed in that in times past and it’s time for us to step up and start doing that. Let’s just put Christianity to the side, community as a whole needs to step up and help these kids because eventually those kids will be the community and if we haven’t impacted their lives now, then they will impact our lives when they are adults and they are making bad choices or maybe they are not even adults yet — teens — running away, doing things that they shouldn’t do because they don’t know any better because no one has stepped up to impact their lives and so you are right, as a community, as a whole, we’ve got to do better for these kids,” said Ajasin.
The dedication ceremony will be held from 2 to 4:30 p.m. Sunday at the new TruLight Village located again at 3925 Linne Rd off of Interstate 10. To learn more, tune in to Seguin Radio KWED for its Saturday Topic Program. KWED General Manager Darren Dunn will sit down with Ajasin who will share more about this new children’s shelter. The Saturday Topic Program hits the airwaves Saturday at 8:15 a.m. You can listen on AM 1580 KWED or at SeguinToday.com.