Alumna Creates Organization To Assist Former Foster Youth
Shavon Saint Preux always knew she wanted to help others.
While living in a group home for foster kids, the then 14-year-old met her mentor DD Eisenberg, a volunteer who taught reading and creative writing.
“Every time I ran into a problem, [DD] was there to help me,” Saint Preux said. “So from a very young age, I saw [that] youth who age out of foster care, who don’t have support systems, need mentors.”
In 2022, she founded Propelling Into Triumph, an organization dedicated to helping foster youth transition into adulthood.
The program’s services include mentorship to help with educational opportunities and employment and provide training in essential life skills, such as cooking and cleaning.
Saint Preux’s time at Miami Dade College inspired her to open PIT. In 2016, she was a part of the College’s Changemaker Corps Peer Mentoring program. She served as a peer mentor, helping former foster youth navigate personal challenges and keep them on track toward graduation.
Those experiences led her to apply to the Clinton Global Initiative University—a program that allows college students worldwide to submit proposals to fund their solution to a societal issue.
Her idea for PIT was selected, and she was flown to a national convention where she met other awardees to network and share ideas.
“Shavon is a testament to the important role of helping students become more civically engaged while they’re [enrolled at MDC] and how it can lead to long term and community-wide impacts,” said Josh Young, college-wide director of the Institute for Civic Engagement & Democracy.
The 31-year-old’s organization works with Saints House, a sister program also founded by Saint Preux. The facility specializes in housing youth who age out of foster care including many PIT scholars. To date, they have housed twenty-two women and nine children.
Daina Bellegarde is one of the program’s beneficiaries. The 24-year-old entered the foster care system when she was 10 years old and struggled with homelessness until she saw Saint Preux on the news promoting Saints House.
Today, Bellegrade is a pre-nursing student at Medical Campus. The PIT scholar is pursuing a doctor in nursing practice degree, a credential that prepares nurses for educational and leadership positions.
“By seeing other people come from the same place you came from doing this, it gives you motivation,” said Bellegarde, who hopes to run an organization and a clinic for homeless people and foster children. “It doesn’t matter where you came from and what you’re going through.”
Propelling Into Triumph also has a “Mommy and Me” program, which provides resources and parenting guides for young mothers who have aged out of foster care.
“Our goal is to break the cycle of foster care,” Saint Preux said. “We understand that if they are not provided with the adequate resources, they can fall in between the gaps and then their children can go into foster care, and the cycle continues.”
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