She sat at a decorated table, surrounded by little girls dressed like princesses, and happily realized her efforts were finally paying off.
For many of the girls, who daintily sipped their juice with pinkies up, it was more than just another day at Like a Lion summer camp. All of the campers come from inner city, low-income homes, so for some, feeling like a princess is a rare treat.
“The kids don’t have a lot of things in general, so when they come to our program, many of them have been in the same clothes all week,” Schlichter said. “They never really get to have fun dressing up or getting their hair done special.”
Schlichter, a 21-year-old Carmel, Indiana native, started volunteering with at-risk youth when she was in high school. When the center she worked at announced it would be closing its doors in 2012, she and three of her friends decided to take matters into their own hands.
They founded Like a Lion, an Indianapolis-based after-school program and summer camp, when they were only seniors in high school.
“We kind of started the nonprofit on a whim,” she said. “We didn’t come in with any prior knowledge about running a nonprofit, so we had to do so much research for every little thing.”
The young women’s ages were also a hindrance as they sought funding for their organization, which provides all of its services, including transportation and tutoring, for free.
“We lost some trust from older people, potential donors, who would look in at the program and think that we couldn’t handle it at such a young age,” Schlichter said. “With the kids though, it helps us relate because we’re not that far out from them. We still understand what it feels like to be a kid and the pressures they’re facing.”
After graduating from Carmel High School, Schlichter planned to attend IU for four years and continue running the camp in the summers. She wanted to obtain her degree and return to run the year-round program.
“When I got to Bloomington though, it was just too hard to be away from the kids,” she said. “I felt like we were losing valuable time with the kids we did have, and I didn’t want to let go of all of that progress.”
After her freshman year, she decided to transfer to IU-Purdue University Indianapolis so that Like a Lion could be a more consistent presence in the youths’ lives.
She and one of the other original founders, Rachel Milkie, work Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in the church near downtown Indianapolis, where the camp is run.
“It’s in an area where there are a lot of bad influences, so having a safe place for the kids is really important,” she said. “We also put a lot of emphasis on creating a stable place. A lot of them lack a consistent source of support in their lives, and it starts to show in their academics as well as their other behaviors.”
The camp is a Christian program dedicated to providing both academic and emotional support for the 20 children currently enrolled.
Schlichter said she has seen many campers become more outgoing and social through spending time with her, other campers and the organization’s volunteers.
She said she hopes Like a Lion will become her full-time job after graduation.
“We have people knocking on our door every day hoping to enroll their kids,” she said, noting the list of children waiting to be enrolled in the program is longer than the list of current campers. “We want to double our numbers as well as add classes for moms and programs for younger siblings for when the moms are at work.”
The young women also hope they will be able to host children every day, instead of just three days a week. Until that time, Schlichter said she is happy to sit at tea time and see the progress her organization has made.
“I want the kids to know that even though they might not have a lot, they are worth so much and they deserve to have as much fun as every other kid,” she said of the campers she refers to as her family.
“Seeing those girls’ eyes light up as they put on those dresses and seeing how much they felt valued in that moment — it was an amazing feeling.”
