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Support for Eric Rodriguez
This past week has been one of the hardest weeks the Razing the Bar community has ever had to endure. One of the members of our community, Eric Rodriguez, passed away unexpectedly on Saturday, October 3, from a heart attack. He was 28 years old.
Eric was an artist, a full time student and an avid fan of anime. He was shy, until you got to know him, and a deep thinker. As one of his mentors, we’d often engage in meaningful conversations, and I’d sometimes wonder, even during our conversations, who was the ‘teacher’ and who was the ‘student’. He was wise beyond his years, with most of his knowledge about life being gained as an observer and participant in the foster care system.
Eric had no connections to his family. In addition, he had no permanent connections that he could count on when he aged out of foster care at 24. At some point, Eric had been connected to almost every major non profit serving foster youth in the area.
When we connected with Eric he was sleeping in his car.
As a result of his life experiences, Eric suffered from depression. This goes hand in hand with his life spent in foster care - bouncing from placement to placement, foster home to group home - without the ability to establish any positive, permanent connections. Always wondering if anybody REALLY cared about him. Once accepted into our community, we worked on establishing the long term, positive connection with Eric that we knew he needed - that we all need.
My connection with Eric centered around school. The first semester Eric attended college, I went with him to his classes almost everyday. I did this because I wanted to model what being a student was like - especially since he’d never had school modeled for him before. He was just referred and expected to succeed. He was a living, breathing data point and he knew it. One day, as Eric and I were on our way back from San Jose City College, he looked at me lightly teary eyed, and asked me why we were doing what we were doing. He knew at that point the non profit was still self funded. I shared with him that the reason that we were doing it was so that he could, in turn, do it for somebody else one day. That’s it.
The most difficult part for us is wondering if he ever KNEW that we truly cared about him - even though we’d demonstrated it for almost 3 years. He’d been ‘cared about’ and abandoned for for the previous 25 years.
We will be having a service for Eric and will share details soon. If you’re able to assist us with associated costs, it’d be greatly appreciated. All monies exceeding the cost of the service will be used to fund a scholarship in Eric’s name for foster youth who are in school, and simultaneously working on an area of self improvement. Thank you for your support.
Eric was an artist, a full time student and an avid fan of anime. He was shy, until you got to know him, and a deep thinker. As one of his mentors, we’d often engage in meaningful conversations, and I’d sometimes wonder, even during our conversations, who was the ‘teacher’ and who was the ‘student’. He was wise beyond his years, with most of his knowledge about life being gained as an observer and participant in the foster care system.
Eric had no connections to his family. In addition, he had no permanent connections that he could count on when he aged out of foster care at 24. At some point, Eric had been connected to almost every major non profit serving foster youth in the area.
When we connected with Eric he was sleeping in his car.
As a result of his life experiences, Eric suffered from depression. This goes hand in hand with his life spent in foster care - bouncing from placement to placement, foster home to group home - without the ability to establish any positive, permanent connections. Always wondering if anybody REALLY cared about him. Once accepted into our community, we worked on establishing the long term, positive connection with Eric that we knew he needed - that we all need.
My connection with Eric centered around school. The first semester Eric attended college, I went with him to his classes almost everyday. I did this because I wanted to model what being a student was like - especially since he’d never had school modeled for him before. He was just referred and expected to succeed. He was a living, breathing data point and he knew it. One day, as Eric and I were on our way back from San Jose City College, he looked at me lightly teary eyed, and asked me why we were doing what we were doing. He knew at that point the non profit was still self funded. I shared with him that the reason that we were doing it was so that he could, in turn, do it for somebody else one day. That’s it.
The most difficult part for us is wondering if he ever KNEW that we truly cared about him - even though we’d demonstrated it for almost 3 years. He’d been ‘cared about’ and abandoned for for the previous 25 years.
We will be having a service for Eric and will share details soon. If you’re able to assist us with associated costs, it’d be greatly appreciated. All monies exceeding the cost of the service will be used to fund a scholarship in Eric’s name for foster youth who are in school, and simultaneously working on an area of self improvement. Thank you for your support.
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