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Volume 51, Issue 90 | monday, february 20, 2017 | ndsmcobserver.com
Events celebrate juniors, family members Junior Parents Weekend offers opportunity for class of 2018, parents to reflect on time together By COURTNEY BECKER News Writer
Notre Dame welcomed parents and families to campus Friday for Junior Parents Weekend (JPW), an annual celebration for juniors and any seniors who spent spring semester of their junior year abroad. Junior Madi Purrenhage, executive co-chair of JPW, said the weekend offered an opportunity for students to relax with family members. “It’s just a really good weekend to see all your friends,” she said. “Most people aren’t doing their homework when their parents are here, so everybody [was] focused on socializing. … I [was] really excited to see all of the work we put in and how that [played] out.” JPW kicked off Friday with the
Opening Gala throughout the Joyce Center, which Purrenhage said served as the highlight of the weekend. “It fills up the entirety of the [Joyce Center], all that space, and there’s a photographer, several cash bars, appetizers and hors d’oeuvres and then a DJ and a dance floor,” she said. “So it’s basically a very large, moving party.” Junior Tommy Yemc, the other executive co-chair of JPW, said he and Purrenhage began preparing for this year’s JPW last spring to make sure all the events came together. “We chose our committee in April of last year and began very preliminary discussions about what we wanted this weekend see JPW PAGE 4
MICHAEL YU | The Observer
A student and her family pose for photos at the JPW Opening Gala in Purcell Pavilion on Friday night. Over 3,000 people attended the event, which kicked off the weekend.
Saint Mary’s student Cab driver reflects explains foster care system on 10 years of students, routes By STEPHANIE SNYDER News Writer
In honor of National Foster Care Month in May and National Child Abuse Prevention Month in April, Saint Mary’s sophomore Taylor Kehoe explained the urgent need to change the way the foster care system is run in the United States at last week’s installment of Justice Friday. Kehoe said she has seen the effects of the foster care system firsthand. Her aunt and uncle were not able to conceive a child and exhausted all other options to adopt. They decided they would try to foster children, with the intention to eventually adopt a child. In 2013, Kehoe’s aunt and uncle began fostering two young sisters. The girls previously lived with a younger brother and another half-sister who were being raised by their biological mother and a nonbiological father. The mother had had seven children before having the other four; all were taken away from her and either put in the foster care system or adopted by other family members.
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While the children lived in the house, they were physically and sexually abused by their father. The abuse led to the death of the little brother, and the remaining three children were finally taken away from their parents. Despite the girls’ sad beginning, Kehoe said their story brings a smile to her face. “I love my aunt and uncle’s story because they really needed kids and the kids needed parents,” she said. “It makes me happy because they’re adopted now and they have a whole new life to look forward to.” However, Kehoe said the system can be a negative experience for children. The children who do not get adopted age out of the system at 18 years old. Kehoe said nearly 24,000 children age out of the system every year, and one in five of those children will be homeless as a result. Group homes, she said, are competitive some oftentimes only exist in big cities. Only half of the kids will be employed after age 24, she said. Kehoe said as of Sept. 30, 2014, 415,129 children were in the foster care system, and 107,918 of those children were eligible and
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waiting to be adopted. “A child enters foster care about every two minutes,” she said. “Every eight minutes, Child Protective Services find evidence for a claim of child abuse.” By the time the children leave the system, Kehoe said 75 percent of them will have experienced child abuse, and one in four will have post-traumatic stress disorder as a result, just like one of Kehoe’s cousins. Once the children are out of the system, Kehoe said 50 percent of them will be incarcerated within two years. The girls in the system are also shown to be 50 percent more likely to become pregnant before the age of 21 than those who are not in the system. Kehoe said this is likely because of the lack of support for the children. “We’re not devoting the money and materials to get the kids out of the system,” she said. “They give the same amount of money designated for food for an 8-yearold boy as they do to a 17-year-old boy.” Another negative of the system is that many foster parents
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By EMILY McCONVILLE News Writer
Gail Hickey, the founder of The Bend Executive Shuttle and a longtime South Bend taxi driver, has a lot of stories. Like the time a couple met in her cab, back when she was working for Yellow Cab. Hickey was driving three guys, and she asked if she could pick up three girls on the way. “One of the guys and the girls ended up dating, they graduated, ended up following each other to law school . . . and ended up getting married,” she said. “They met because I asked if it was okay to pick them up together.” In the middle of a long weekend picking up parents in town for Junior Parents Weekend, Hickey said she started driving in about 2008. It was before Eddy Street Commons, before Uber and Lyft, before most other cab drivers and companies. Hickey drove nights, while her husband, Terry Hickey, drove days. Gail Hickey soon became
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one of several local drivers with a “following” — students who love getting rides with her, who call her first and who trust her unconditionally. “As I drove and my popularity got bigger, students would actually start calling me in advance to say, ‘Okay, we are definitely going out tonight,’ to make sure they made the most of the time that they had,” she said. Over the past decade, her business has, in fact, became mostly word of mouth. Students recommended her to other students. She became the driver of choice for various campus groups: Pasquerilla East girls, certain Latino students, fencers, law students who once had her star in a comedy sketch video and Saint Mary’s students whom she made sure actually got to Saint Mary’s at the end of the night, not just Main Circle. Parents found out about her and called her, asking her to make sure their kids were safe. Students inherited her from older siblings. see SHUTTLE PAGE 4
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