For grades 5-8
Introduction: This story is fiction, but it is based on real circumstances of many children in the United States and around the world who are forced to live on the streets. Mentioned is Covenant House, a place where children in New York City can go to for safety, medical care, help with getting job training, etc. The Covenant House organization assisted more that 500,000 children and has now expanded to fourteen more cities in the United States as well as Canada and Latin America.

Story:
It was snowing lightly. A few Christmas lights twinkled from a storefront. Thirteen-year-old Tyrone saw the van coming down the street. Other kids had told him about this van. It came from Covenant House, a place that helped kids who were in trouble, kids who lived on the streets, kids who were runaways.

Well, he fit those descriptions. When his mother died, Tyrone had gone to live with his aunt. One of her friends was a man who often came to visit. But he was no friend to Tyrone. In fact, sometimes he hurt Tyrone. Tyrone never knew what to expect. He told his aunt, but she said, “If you don’t like it here, you don’t have to stay.”

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