There is the family you’re born into and the one you choose: Aging out of foster care meets elder aging in place when a teenager and a hippy activist team up on solutions to the housing crisis.

SYNOPSIS:

High school graduation looms on the horizon for a super smart teen, aging out of foster care and facing few options. Homeless? Wait listed for how long to get subsidized housing? In foster care since childhood, having witnessed her father’s murder and her mother going to jail for the crime, our teenager is the cash cow for her emotionally unsupportive foster parents. With support from her Child and Family Services caseworker, she and her high school best friends start a business to raise the needed deposit and rent money before she turns eighteen.

While on the job, these ambitious teens meet an elder political activist in charge of Hot Meals by Hot Wheels, the senior food delivery program through the local community center. An activist her whole life, she’s an old hippy from the Vietnam era with an FBI file, and quite familiar with creative solutions for social causes. She hires the at risk teens to work on several community projects: clothing drives for refugees, and the meal delivery route.

Just when things are getting better, our elder activist is a victim of gang violence. During recovery from the gunshot wound, she suffers a stroke. Our teen becomes her caregiver, bonding them as adopted granddaughter and grandmother, a relationship they both need.

The housing solution is out there. One of the hot meal recipients is a widow living alone in a huge house that needs help, inside and out. Our Earth mama gun shot/stroke victim needs help. Our teenager aging out of foster care needs help. Enter The Drop-In Squad: lawn and garden care, house cleaning and errands for seniors in need. The widow and our graduating teen also share a birthday. Now she has a great aunt.

Graduation day arrives and her new relatives are there to support her. But, the caseworker has been secretly communicating with her mother, who is getting out of jail after serving ten years for the murder. Just before the ceremony, her mother and brother arrive unexpectedly for the commencement. Our teen wants nothing to do with her blood family. She’s got a new place to call home, a new family, a new business, a new (used) car, a new lease on life. Problems are resolved by redefining what it means to be part of a family. There’s the family you’re born into and the one you create.