May is national foster care awareness month! Each May, we take time to acknowledge foster parents, family members, volunteers, mentors, and other members of the community who help children and youth in foster care. We use this time to renew our commitment to ensuring a bright future for the more than 53,000 children and youth in foster care in California, and celebrate those who make a meaningful difference in their lives.
Foster care impacts communities. The kids in the system attend local schools and churches. Through your efforts, you can make a difference in the life of a child. Foster Care Month plays an important role in recruiting new foster parents by increasing the public’s awareness of the number of children in out-of-home care, and the positive impact care providers have in the lives of children.
Watch Ally’s Video, A Former Child In Foster Care Through Agape
Agape Needs Your Help
Help us improve the lives of kids in foster care by providing more homes for them. Make your dollar count!
Ally’s Story
Ally was only 5 when she entered foster care for the first time. She was able to reunify with her parents after her first placement, but things only got worse for her when she went back home. Beatings were more intense than before. She was locked in her room, starved, never being able to play outside. This is not the life a child should have. School was a place Ally loved to be, it was the only safe place for her, a place where she could distract herself from the reality of what was going on at home. Ally got good grades in school despite all the abuse she was experiencing. Her parents would pull her from school as a punishment, taking away her only sense of safety.
Thankfully Ally was removed from her home a second time at age 14 and she was placed with Betty, one of Agape’s resource (foster) families. Betty took Ally in as her own and gave her the love and care she deserved. She was able to process what she had gone through in her past and focus on her goals for the future.
Ally is now an incredible young woman who has graduated college from Cal Poly with a 3.5 GPA!! She made the Dean’s list, has applied to the Peace Corp and is looking into a Master’s program in International Apparel Management. She has a love for learning and is excited to see where her passion will take her. Not only is she a kind and caring person, but she has overcome so many obstacles and is thriving.
This is the kind of story we love and are proud to tell you about! We know Ally is going to make a big impact in the world. She already has, and a big part of that is the love and care she had from her foster, now forever, family. How- ever the costs to help kids like Ally are high and we cannot do what we do without YOUR financial support!
It is because of donors like you that stories like Ally’s are possible!
Ally recently said, “I was able to have great social workers from the start with Agape Villages because of the advocacy I got while in care. In Agape Villages I was able to have a great foster home where I was able to find my forever home. Through the staff members and resources I was able to get the guidance I needed. They always made sure I was well taken care of. The social workers and foster parents work very closely to make sure they are both advocating for the child.”
This is what YOU make possible!
Why Agape?
We are not only CARF certified but we also provide Enhanced Treatment Foster Care which essentially means going above and beyond the minimum foster care placement requirements by recruiting and training high-quality foster families, with the goal of finding placements for even the most challenging situations, as well as providing a master’s level social worker in the home once a week.
Thank You For Your Gift!
Help us improve the lives of kids in foster care by providing more homes for them and making more stories, like Ally’s, possible.