About The TAY Shop
Building on the success of Foster Care Counts’ Goods For Grades program, The TAY Shop was founded in early 2017 to provide TAY (transitional aged youth) in Los Angeles County with new clothing and essential items to help ease the transition into adulthood with dignity and pride. With the support of the Pritzker Foster Care Initiative and others, we launched a center that not only offers new clothes and essentials, but also works with partner organizations to provide on-site life skills workshops to these young people. Since inception we have served more than 7,500 young people, giving away thousands of self-esteem-boosting items. Our work in the past year has been transformative not just for the TAY youth but also for us as an organization. We are evolving into a hub where organizations that serve TAY and system-effected youth are connected to each other to increase outcomes and enrich current programs.
As part of our holistic approach to literacy, The TAY Shop is a retail environment where transitional aged foster youth (18 -27* years old) are able to shop for new casual & career clothing and basic essentials free of charge. We provide a personalized shopping experience that ensures our youth leave with the essentials needed to feel appropriately attired for their internships, job interviews and school life. This can be life changing for the young people who visit our space.
‘Clients’ are referred to us by educational, mentoring or job training programs and shop by appointment only.
* Up to age 30 if enrolled in a program of higher learning, college or a recognized trade program.