Three weeks before Christmas, I saw a post that snatched me out of the holiday haze: there were local foster children that needed Christmas presents. My mind flashed to the million and one Amazon orders I had already placed for my two kids, and it broke my heart to know there was a child out there that didn’t have the same. My local Southern Pines girls and I banded together and played Santa to get about 10 foster children gifts through The Candy Cane Project by Galyons Foster Care Support. The gifts were for the children at Omni Family of Services, located in Hope Mills. It was so beyond touching to see my clients step up and assist these families in such a generous way. I drove from home to home picking up the gifts and was absolutely giddy peeking in the present bags; There were basketballs, legos, and colorful tutus everywhere.
One of my clients shared with me that her children had picked out the gifts themselves. It made my heart so happy that she was instilling the importance of charity and letting them know that sharing their abundant blessings is essential to being a human in the world.
Through this process, and through my friend Annie (who founded Galyons Foster Care Support), I got to know the exceptional humans that work at Omni Family of Services. Shortly after dropping off the gifts, my husband and I decided we wanted to become licensed foster parents through Omni. As of yesterday, we finished our classes to learn more about the process and learn how to care for foster children. We’re expecting to become licensed and get our first placement very, very soon! It's been a dream of ours to grow our family through fostering and adopting, and we feel immensely grateful that this has come together in such a beautiful way.
Going forward, I’ll be taking donations for gently used clothes and toys of all sizes for children so that I can be a resource for foster families in our area that need clothes in a pinch. It's not uncommon for kids to be dropped off with little notice at 6pm in the evening with a garbage bag of clothes. Because of sanitary concerns, in some cases those clothes are unusable for a while. In cases like that, I want to be able to run over some pajamas and an outfit or two to get them through the night. It truly takes a village to raise the children of the world, so if you feel compelled, we would love your support. If you’d like to donate, please email hello@deuxskin.co with “Foster Donations” in the subject line. And if you’d like to take this a step further and become a foster parent yourself, reach out to me!
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