Former clients priase Daybreak for pulling them from darkness

YOUNGSTOWN

A few short years ago when he was 16, Victor McCrae was kicked out of his mother’s boyfriend’s home and found himself having to sleep in a car with nowhere to go.

“I felt like it was a hole in my heart,” the 18-year-old Boardman man recalled. “I had nobody.”

Today, however, McCrae has a job with a mobile-communications company, a promising future and a baby on the way. And the bridge that allowed him to cross from a dark past to a bright future was Daybreak Youth Crisis Center, he said.

“They made me feel at home in one day,” added McCrae, who was among the estimated 60 mental-health professionals, elected officials, supporters, community leaders and former clients who attended a gathering Thursday afternoon to celebrate the co-ed facility’s 40th anniversary.

McCrae also was among five former Daybreak clients who shared testimonials during the 90-minute event at the Newport branch of the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County, 3730 Market St., on the South Side.

Daybreak, which opened in 1976 and is at 2611 Homestead Ave., on the South Side, is a community-based, 10-bed shelter that acts as a safe haven for youngsters age 11 to 18 who are homeless. Many have suffered from abuse and neglect, run away or been expelled from their homes, noted Katina Hetrick, interim program manager.

Read more about the event and Daybreak in Friday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.