Holly Yzquierdo

Each year North Star Youth Partnership in Prescott, Ariz.,  holds their annual Teen Maze to teach middle and high school students about the consequences of life choices.

Catholic Charities has the largest resettlement program for refugees in Arizona, helping nearly 1,000 refugees each year. Our clients come to us with very few personal items. We help them get settled into their new life in America.

John Nystedt had never considered adoption. He wasn’t against the idea, it had just never occurred to him. He already had three biological kids. But his wife Annette dreamt of bringing children into her home—children who had no one else— and making them family.

The experience proved more difficult than most of the students anticipated. “I now understand it’s a lot harder to do the regular things you do every day," said an eighth grade student. "Before this, I always wanted to know what it was like to be a teen mom and now I know, and it makes me want to wait and live my life as a kid.”