When TeeJ Mercer witnessed an 18-year-old foster child being dropped off at her college dorm by her foster family, it changed her life forever.
They, “Pulled up to her campus, let her unload her stuff, and then just left her. That broke my heart,” Mercer told CBS DFW.
The moment led Mercer to start “Move-in Day Mafia,” a nonprofit dedicated to providing dorm room makeovers and essential care packages to first-year college students that have aged out of foster care.
More than decorating and furnishing dorm rooms, the network of volunteers that make up the Move-in Day Mafia seeks to help new college students that do not have a traditional family support system.
“It’s very simple, we’re just trying to fill the basic needs because I want the students to just go to school and be students,” said Mercer.
Move-in Day Mafia is helping 13 incoming freshmen students at the local Paul Quinn College in Dallas this year.
“It’s going to inspire other young people that there are people out there who care, that support their academic goal,” stated Maurice West of the office of development and external affairs at Paul Quinn College.
The statistics for foster children who attend college are bleak. Move-in Day Mafia reported on its website that while 70% of kids in foster care say they dream of attending college, over 50% will end up in prison, and 70% of those who age out of the foster care system become pregnant by the age of 21, making the possibility of attending college more difficult.
Even more alarming, only 3% of foster care students actually end up earning a degree.
Mercer hopes to change the numbers and outcomes of children who have been left with no one to call family or a place to call home.
Move-in Day Mafia also assists non-foster care students who are lower income.
One of the freshmen getting the Move-in Day Mafia treatment is Taylor Dixon, who is receiving assistance because her scholarship does not fully cover her expenses. Her family is on a fixed income.
“We have to budget once a month for things, and this came quickly for me as a mother to see my child going off to college,” stated Sharonda Gray, Dixon’s mother.
Other community partners are also pitching in. Local group Travel and Travel, according to Fox 4, will provide students with mental health resources, a financial literacy program, and other types of support.