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This week we feature the founder of “Foster Hope New York”, a ministry which helps pair up local foster care kids with families. Hannah Bender started by connecting with one fostering family in the Syracuse area just a few years ago. This ministry added a foster club, and now helps to “fill in gaps” as needed in the foster and adoptive community in central New York.

The program includes advocacy and recruitment. There are support groups for foster families, for those in foster care, and for teens and young adults who have aged out of foster care. Donors stock a Foster Closet. Its clothing and toys and supplies are especially needed for the first day — or the first night — of a placement of a child or teen, especially if that happens on an emergency basis.

Hear about how Bender discovered how to enact her personal motivation to help these young people, as well as how you can become involved. Foster Hope acknowledges that not everyone can become a foster family — but says everyone can do something to create positive experiences and outcomes for the kids they call their “little warriors”

 

For more about national trends in how congregations are promoting, supporting, and encouraging the valuable ministry of foster care, you can also listen to or download our parallel June 21 News Feature. We interviewed the director of Lifeway Research about their survey of how — and how often — churches lift up the topic of recruiting and supporting adoptive parents and foster families.