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© St. Petersburg Times, published May 1, 2002
WASHINGTON -- Amanda "Nikki" Hauter came into the congressional hearing room a bundle of nerves. She left to the applause of gray-haired congressmen who saluted her courage.
The 16-year-old runaway from St. Petersburg testified before a House Appropriations subcommittee Tuesday, pleading for increased funding for the social services programs that have helped turn her life around.
There were no television cameras or jostling reporters, just two grandfatherly Republican congressmen nodding with quiet encouragement. Nikki read quickly from a prepared text written on note cards, ad libbing in places.
"From a kid's point of view who's been in these programs, they do help," she said, looking up from her cards.
Wearing a black jacket and pin-striped pants, the bespectacled Hauter told the Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education that her troubled family life led her to skip school and head down a "path of complete destruction."
She and her father had a strained relationship, and one day he dropped her at a YMCA shelter for runaways in Sarasota, the city where her family was living.
She was admitted to the Transitional Living Program, or TLP, a service of the nonprofit Family Resources Inc. of St. Petersburg. There were no slots for her in Sarasota, so she entered the TLP in St. Petersburg in December.
The TLP provides a safe haven for young people ages 16 to 21 for up to 18 months as they stabilize their lives. Proud of her progress, a supervisor asked Nikki if she'd like to make the case for more funding of the program before Congress, and she agreed.
She was thrilled to meet lawmakers such as Rep. Karen Thurman, D-Dunnellon. And she learned that Congress is not as intimidating as the C-SPAN cameras make it out to be.
"It's easier than I expected. Watching C-SPAN, you see lots of big rooms and lots of people," Nikki said.
Instead, she got a lesson in the slow, often monotonous pace of real life Capitol Hill. As the 14th person scheduled to testify before the subcommittee Tuesday, Nikki waited through an hour and a half of speeches by other supplicants before getting her turn.
The subcommittee hearing room was small and somewhat shabby, and for much of the hearing only the subcommittee chairman, Rep. Ralph Regula, R-Ohio, was in attendance. She made an appeal for $150-million to fund programs of the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act, $37-million more than the $113-million President Bush has requested.
Regula asked gently if she had any contact with her father. "I do, from time to time," Nikki replied.
When she said her father was proud of her for getting her life together, Sherwood said, "Well, he should be proud of you, Nikki. You did a wonderful job."
Nikki then injected some life into the sleepy hearing by declaring that her visit to Capitol Hill has made her interested in law school.
"Before you become a senator, right?" Regula teased as the audience laughed.