Sleep Train Foster Kids Dollar Drive On Now Through November 4th!
For over 60,000 California foster children extracurricular activities help provide a sense identity and a path to success. Joining the soccer team, getting help with math, learning to swim, activities like these are shown to provide stability and improve academic achievement. To help Sleep Train is collecting donations to help pay for the extra activities foster children usually go without. Just bring your donation to any Sleep Train or donate online and help a local foster child join in on the fun.

Not Everyone Can Be A Foster Parent But Anyone Can Help a Foster Child.

John Blundell wrote the article, which is a must-read.

http://www.thefreemanonline.org/features/the-road-to-villa-nueva/

From the organization’s website:

Citizens Caring for Children provides clothing, shoes, duffel bags, books, school supplies, mentors and other necessities to more than 3,600 foster children each year. The children served have been removed from their homes because of abuse and/or neglect with nothing but the clothing on their backs. 

Children in foster care live in your neighborhoods and go to your schools, but lead much different lives. Together we can change their future and give them hope. 

You can help, wherever you live! From shoes and socks to school supplies and so much more, please consider extending a hand to children in foster care.

I’ve just learned about an amazing group in Oregon. Read on!

From the Foster Closet blog:

(This isn’t the inside of the store…but it looks very similar.)

I absolutely love the motto of Bogota Savings Bank in New Jersey:

“Small enough to know you, 

              Strong enough to serve you well.”

If only other institutions would follow suit. It’s a refreshing change from “too big to fail.” Imagine if our government programs took this approach! Or the companies where we work, places we study or even our local auto repair shops.

Small enough to know you: because you are valuable.

Strong enough to serve you well: because you are valuable. 

I can think of one group in particular for whom these words would ring a special sound: kids in foster care.

And our friends and Bogota Savings Bank know this, too. They are holding a school supply drive for kids in foster care. The drive will last through Thursday, so if you live in Bogota’s neck of the woods, please stop by with some #2 pencils, binders and rulers. The basics. That’s what these kids–and indeed all kids–need.

Coming soon: updates on how YOU can help foster children make a great start in the coming school year.

As you know, nearly a half million foster kids will be going back to school this September. To help California’s foster youth, the heroes at Sleep Train will be collecting new school supplies for foster children throughout the state. I have participated in this drive and it’s a lot of fun!

Click here for store locations.

Click here if you or your organization would like to run a back-to-school supply drive.

Thank you!

Some 30,000 young people will exit foster care this year and many have nowhere to go. Former foster youth are disproportionately represented among the homeless.

YOU can help. Our friends at Standupforkids.org help homeless youth across the nation. You can help by joining one of the organization’s outreach teams. You can help by organizing a “Don’t Run Away” lecture at your local high school or middle school. You can help by providing the following:

• New and gently used clothing
• Hygiene products
• Food products
• First Aid products
• Bus passes, phone cards, gift certificates
• Back office program support items

If you are a corporation and want to get involved donating at the national level, please contact Staff@standupforkids.org.

Thank you!

The Moraga Youth Involement Committee is holding a backpack drive all month to collect backpacks as donations. The backpacks will be given to students fourth grade and younger whose families can’t afford to purchase a new backpack.

The drive is taking place at Moraga’s Parks and Recreation office at the Hacienda de las Flores, located at 2100 Donald Drive. Donations will be accepted through the end of the month on weekdays between 8:30 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.

In addition to backpacks, new school supplies can also be donated, which will be put into the backpacks for the students.

The backpacks will be donated to students throughout the county through the nonprofit organization, Shelter, Inc.

“The Moraga Youth Involvement Committee, a group of middle and high school students dedicated to giving back and serving their community, is hosting a backpack drive for children in grades kindergarten through fourth who would not be able to otherwise afford the school supplies.

“New school supplies such as crayons, binders, rulers, and, of course, backpacks, as well as monetary donations, will be graciously accepted. The filled backpacks will then be distributed through a local program called Shelter, Inc. to impoverished children in the Contra Costa County.”

DATES: Now through June 30th.

DROP-OFF LOCATION

Recreation Office of the Hacienda de las Flores
2100 Donald Drive, Moraga

DROP-OFF TIMES

8:30 A.M. to 5:00 P.M., Monday through Friday

CONTACT:

For more information, please call the Committee’s chair, Layth Ramatala, at (925) 262- 3876 or the Recreation and Facilities Coordinator, Kimberly Nelson, at (925) 888-7035.