Support teams are a chance to give back and directly support foster and adoptive families. We believe that getting involved with a support team benefits both the giver and the receiver.
The receiver benefits, because it means a lot to foster/adopt families to feel noticed and supported. Fostering can be isolating for a lot of reasons, and receiving a support as simple as a meal means feeling less alone. We’ve written an article that goes into a little more depth on that topic:
The giver also benefits because it brings you up close and personal into someone’s foster care journey. You might not be a foster or adoptive parent, but you can be a part of and meaningfully contribute to someone’s story. When you participate in something, you get to be a part of it. Whether that’s in a big way or a small way, you get to be a part of something bigger than yourself and your own family.
How Do Support Teams Work?
Kids Belong receives requests all the time to help families who are in transition. A lot of needs for clothing and supplies we can meet right away through our closets, but sometimes a foster or adopt family has a major life change or sickness or crisis and we can provide meals or other tangible services to help them through. Some examples of families we have helped:
– A foster family who had a major structural issue in their home and had to move in to a hotel for a while so it could be cleaned up and repaired
– A foster family who took a new placement of a large sibling group that included a new baby. We were able to pull together some meals, some furniture, bunk beds and bedding
– Grandparents who are taking in their grandkids through foster care, and the agency had found beds for the kids but needed bedding
– A family who took in a baby for the first time in a while, and they needed a crib and some baby supplies
Kids Belong is made aware of the need either by the family calling, a friend referring them, or sometimes their foster care agency calls us to see if we have any resources available to help.
We then put the word out to our support teams about the need. Sometimes we share a Mealtrain. Sometimes we can find items like furniture that can be donated directly. Sometimes we give you the chance to donate for specific items through Venmo or Paypal. In that way we can raise money directly and immediately to cover those needs. All donations through these channels go directly to purchasing the items needed.
Support teams also have opportunities to volunteer with closets and other events, including our annual Christmas Stockings! If you want to be the first to know about these kinds of opportunities and/or would like to be hands on with foster care, join the support teams!
There are 2 ways to join, you can do one or both.
1. Join one of the Facebook groups:
– Muskegon Supports Foster Care
– Ottawa County Supports Foster Care
2. Join the email list below