More than 5,000 New York City teenagers become pregnant every year. According to the New York State Department of Health, the adolescent birth rate is nearly twice that of the national U.S. average.
The consequences come from every angle. Pregnancy and childbirth are the leading cause of death among girls aged 15 to 19, while newborns face much higher health risks compared to births from adult mothers.
The likelihood of teen moms attaining a high school or college degree is drastically lower than their peers, risk of criminal involvement skyrockets, and the vast majority of those parenting on their own live below the poverty line.
Negative impacts can span generations.
Learn how God used childhood challenges to equip Adriene Perry to serve in a unique way in our full conversation:
Within statistics like these stand individual stories – tales often spun out of a life marred by destitution, isolation, and hopelessness.
Thousands of faces are left in the shadows underneath New York City’s shimmering lights. Many are cast into an understaffed and underfunded system unequipped to care for their individual needs. More are left to their own devices with meager support in the face of soaring living costs and the responsibility of a new life to sustain.
Adriene Perry is one New Yorker aiming to redirect the narrative from hopelessness to redemption.
She joined Young Life in 2016, soon helping to launch YoungLives Manhattan, a subsidiary nonprofit focused solely on serving teen parents. The organization works to provide what most of the young women and men would not otherwise have. From everyday resources like groceries, diapers and food, to relational, emotional, and educational support.
For Perry, the work is personal.
The New York native and her older sister spent most of their childhood in Miami. Their mother, once a community figure riding a rocket ship career trajectory in the banking industry, became one of the millions swept into drug addiction at the height of the crack epidemic of the 1980s.
The Perry sisters were faced with raising themselves as young teens. As Adriene tells it, hard circumstances meant mistakes, eventually leading to her sister becoming pregnant at 15 years old.
Already strained to care for themselves, the child was given up for adoption. But Perry’s sister became pregnant again. This time, the pair would shoulder the weight of teen parenthood together – a burden exacerbated by isolation and judgement.
“I walked alongside of her twice as she became a teenage mom and watched her be in isolation and how people judged us so harshly when we were young girls,” Perry said. “There was so much judgement. It was crazy back in those days and how people really didn’t reach out to help us.”
What began as a struggle to survive in a broken home became a heart for those in the same place. Perry would go on to work as a shaper of young people as a teacher but was eventually drawn to the frontlines from which she was formed. She now serves as the leader of YoungLives New York City and Long Island.
“It’s a full circle moment,” Perry explained of the path to becoming a leader in serving the demographic of teen parents. “Getting to meet and see these pregnant or parenting teen moms and approach them in a way where I can possibly impact their lives has been amazing.
“I never saw myself doing this. I’m 55 now and watching how the Lord just has me doing the same thing with these moms who are going through the same – the judgement, the isolation – it's a whirlwind.”
The nonprofit presents a lifeline to those without hope, offering one-on-one mentoring services, group events, physical goods, educational support, and community in the face of seclusion.
One of the most significant challenges for the YoungLives team is reworking the way others view these young women. Perry believes developing awareness of the reality of teen pregnancy will dissipate judgement and, in turn, the isolation many young mothers experience.
As Perry leads the organization in the effort of offering a safe haven and a new future to those walking through darkness, there is one source of strength that helps them carry on – the grace of God.
Her own understanding of the Lord’s love for her helps orient that message and the way she extends it to disadvantaged youth. Perry details an initial perception of God as an angry, cold-shouldered entity that was quick to punishment and slow to mercy. But now, she knows him as a loving Father, a faithful Savior, and a God abundant in love.
“I’ve grown to know the Lord that redeems us from all of our shortcomings and all of our mistakes that we make in life,” Perry said. “I carry that over into what I do now with these young mothers and try to show them this loving God.
“I use my life. I share my journey with them... I tell them when I’m up, I tell them when I’m down, I show them that life isn’t always this fairytale. There are struggles that we all go through at no matter what age, and I just present that to them through my life.”
Perry’s “village” of staff and volunteers is steadily growing, but the need for more hearts and hands to serve also grows.
Many of the resources provided through YoungLives are through partnerships with other nonprofits across the city, providing holistic support to young parents by way of mental health services, financial literacy classes, and a bundle of other aid.
Perhaps the most important aspect of YoungLives’ work is that of one-on-one mentorship. If teen mothers and fathers don't experience being known and loved first, then the abundance of other help provided becomes but a weak bandage on open wounds.
Effectively serving young parents “takes a strong relationship,” Perry emphasized. “The only way you can build a strong relationship is one-on-one. It takes time.”
One such example of the Lord bringing redemption through relationship is of a young mother who first came to YoungLives as a seeker carrying probing questions about religion.
She held a curiosity for Scientology and skepticism for what she saw in the Gospel. But through exposing her struggles within the YoungLives community, she was brought to salvation. Now, she works as a full-time staff member working to connect others to that same hope.
Perry calls it one of many stories of salvation and restoration she has seen.
“I’m so encouraged by watching the journeys of these mothers, watching them come from a place of hopelessness to now having hope,” Perry said. “There’s so many of them too. From, ‘I don’t want to hear about this Jesus, miss. Get out of my face.’ To now, ‘Hey, I read a Scripture. Can you explain that to me?’ That is mind blowing.”
Her chief desire is that the young mothers and fathers she works with would know the God who has sustained her. The faithful Creator that loved her and her sister in the midst of desperation.
When asked what she would say to her younger self and her sister if she could speak to them in the past, the message was a clear one.
“You are loved. You are not alone,” Perry said she would want her and her sister to know as young teens. “There are people that will love you, that will walk alongside you. Do not hide yourselves. God loves you, and despite whatever our mother was going through at that time, she loved us too.”
In the eye of a seemingly unending storm of desperation, Perry and YoungLives continue their work by the strength and grace of a loving God.
To learn more about the work YoungLives is doing in New York City or to get involved, click here.