Alani, 14 years old, VA | 4 DAYS WAITING | NEEDED BY 11/06

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Alani has a rule: every new bedroom gets transformed within the first week, since decorating is how she makes a room her own, no matter how temporary. She has lived in six homes over the past few years, and each time she has packed up her string lights and posters, hoping this one will be the room she gets to keep. Creative, thoughtful, and a little shy at first, she has an eye for color and a gift for making ordinary spaces warm and welcoming. She is wary of getting too comfortable and quietly asks, “How long do I get to stay?” before she lets herself unpack all the way. Beneath her careful, cheerful exterior is a girl who has spent a long time trying to make a home out of places that were not hers.

Alani has a gift for turning plain rooms into spaces that feel like hers, and an acrylic paint set would let her take that creativity one step further by making the art herself. She could paint small canvases to hang on her walls, decorate a box to hold her treasures, or simply lose herself in color after a long day, creating something beautiful that is entirely her own. For a girl who has moved through so many homes and had to leave so much behind, art she makes herself is something she can carry with her, a piece of her heart that no one can pack away or take.