And we did, fast. Goaded into sharing, among other things, the “most dangerous things” I have ever done by 15-year-old Chris (pictured above with the backpack), I scored cool points with my story of being held up at gunpoint by banditos in Mexico. But, when I answered “What’s your favorite movie?” with “Badlands by Terrence Malick” I just got a blank stare.

Chris was actually the inspiration for the workshop. Every time he would come for his appointment with LaShawn Butler, his Youth Development Specialist via the Foundling (and Liz’s workshop co-champion), Chris would ask her, “Have you seen my sister?” And every time his sister, Alex, would come to check in with LaShawn, she would ask, “So, have you seen my brother?”

When LaShawn realized that this brother and sister who came into her office monthly were worlds apart, she came up with the idea to create a structured environment where they – and countless other separated siblings – could meet up once a week and hang out.

Enter Liz Welch, a woman with boundless energy and an even bigger heart. With LaShawn’s help, Liz, an innately talented teacher, created a space where these kids not only felt comfortable sharing their saddest moments on the page, but also to a group of more than 100 strangers.

And so they did. In an auditorium at The Lighthouse in midtown, one by one they took the podium. There was 14-year-old Daquane, whose stage fright was so bad that he was hyperventilating a little bit over chicken fingers at Mickey Mantles. (You can kind of see how nervous he was in the picture above.) He and I joked about imagining the audience in their underwear, and Liz assured him that if he got too scared, she would read his piece for him. Well, Daquane was brave enough to get up onstage and read about the death of his little sister, a memory so raw that I could feel its burn from across the room. Daquane choked up midway through his (sincerely) beautifully written piece, so Liz, true to her word, took the paper from his hand and finished for him, tears running down her own cheeks.

Then there was Allyson who, about to be a mother herself, read a piece about her own mother’s struggle with crack. Allyson’s mother, now sober, was in the audience, and her pride in her daughter was vivid, despite how hard it must have been to hear, in front of all those people, exactly what she had put her daughter through.

All in all, ten kids read their work – one girl wrote about protecting her sister in various homes before they were eventually separated, another talked about the brother whom he has never met. Some brought tears, others laughter, but each writer moved the crowd enough that, after everyone was through reading, we all leaped to our feet to applaud the bravery and talent of these young writers.

You can see a video of the Foundling event, and meet a few of my new heroes, here.

To be honest, I was nervous to meet these kids at first because, frankly, my siblings and I had it so good. We were never put in to the system, never sent to institutionalized homes, never had to worry about getting shot on our way home from school. Sure, our parents died and it was really sad and other things happened that totally sucked, but we also had the leg up of access to private education and a big old trust fund, not to mention straight-up white privilege to help us along the way. These kids have none of that. But they do have intelligence, charm, and the desire to succeed. And they will — but, like anyone, they will only succeed with the help of those who believe in them.

Joking around with Allyson at Mickey Mantles, I asked her if Liz laid down the law during the workshop and treated them real mean like she is wont to do around my house. Knowing full well I was kidding, Allyson smiled and said, “Oh, yeah.” But then she told me the truth. “Every week, Liz would call me and be like: ‘Have you written this week?’ And I’d be like, ‘Yeeahhh.’ And then the day of class, she’d text me to make sure I was gonna to be there,” Allyson recounted, her smile widening. “Nobody’s ever done that before.”