‘The Right Place to Do Something’

“I ordinarily don’t pay attention to TV ads,” Steve said, “but when I saw the Covenant House ad, it just struck me that this was the right place to do something to memorialize my son.”

It’s been many years now — decades — but Steve and his wife, Luise, still recall how difficult it was to have separated their beloved child, Stuart, from the rest of the family. “It was extremely hard but necessary,” he said. “We had no choice.”

When he saw a Covenant House commercial on TV, Steve said, “It was easy for me to recognize we had gone through this situation. Usually, your ad talks about children with no family, children who are abused, or who leave their family. I couldn’t stop thinking about how different our son’s life was from the lives of the youth depicted in your commercial, but separation seemed to be our only option.”

He remembered seeing Stuart appear in a news report, on the receiving end of a local food distribution, and how it broke his heart.

Seeing the Covenant House announcement, Steve, a former Marine Corps officer, felt compelled to respond. He leaned into his lifetime of service and the compassion he and Luise had each learned from their parents.

Steve’s dad had owned a restaurant in New York City, where Steve grew up. During the Great Depression, every night, after the customers had gone and the restaurant closed, his father would distribute unused food. He fed people who were unemployed and homeless, giving them whatever food was available.

“That value to care for others impacted me,” Steve said. He also thought about what his Marine Corps training had taught him. “You can’t survive without others. Marines are warriors who are trained to help each other,” he said.

So, he researched Covenant House. He found we scored very high with charity watchdogs (four stars from Charity Navigator; Platinum rating from Candid), and he and Luise decided to include Covenant House in their estate plans.

“Giving money to Covenant House is a good thing,” Steve said. “I know we have done the correct thing.”

He, Luise, and their daughter, Nancy, kept in touch with Stuart throughout his life. When Stuart passed away three years ago, they were grateful that he was at peace, and they could lay him to rest.

Now, their gift in his memory will help other young people in ways they would have liked Stuart to have been helped.

It will help guarantee Covenant House can keep our doors open for as long as young people need shelter, nourishing food, education, behavioral health care, job readiness services, and more to heal from homelessness and build the life they deserve.

“This is the perfect place to help someone like my son,” Steve said.

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Explore the many ways to give to Covenant House, including planned giving, and help ensure young people have safety, support, and opportunity for generations to come.