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Foster children and teens need safe, caring foster families. If you want information on how to become a foster parent, call (877) 488-5437. |
There are many other ways you can directly help a foster child or teen:
Your Donation Makes All the Difference
Foster families are often in need of extra help to support expenses like tutoring, summer camp, activities and cultural events, medical and dental expenses, school supplies and so much more.
Your donation additionally supports the purchase of gift cards to stores like Safeway or Vons, Toys R Us, Babies R Us, Borders, Old Navy or gas stations to provide urgent necessities. Gift cards also allow foster parents to ensure that their foster children receive birthday and holiday gifts - those “extras” that make children feel at home.
Your donation goes directly to a foster child in need. Please donate now.
Wish List: Clothing and School Supplies
Another very helpful way to support foster children is through donations of needed supplies and clothing – backpacks, coats, shoes – which are always appreciated. Sign up for our email list to receive updates on back-to-school, seasonal and urgent needs in your area. (You will receive not more than one email a week from us and your information is kept private.) Simply fill in the Join Our Community box on the right side of this page.
Emancipation Scholarship Program
While considered legal adults, most teens turning 18 continue to receive emotional support, financial support, and guidance from their birth families for several more years. For youth in foster care, however, this usually gradual transition happens abruptly upon emancipation at age 18.
The result is that foster youth who transition to adulthood face higher risks for homelessness, unemployment, academic failure, incarceration, teen pregnancies, and a host of other problems. National and state studies indicate that as much as
30% to 40% of the homeless population is made up of former foster youth.
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Since 1993, EMQ FamiliesFirst has awarded $675,820 to 248 youth transitioning from foster care to adulthood. In 2009, we awarded over $70,000 to 48 transitional aged foster youth.
The Emancipation Support Fund provides scholarships to EMQ FamiliesFirst foster youth as they leave their foster home and transition to independence. The funds awarded to these young people provide financial support for higher education including tuition, housing, utilities, food and transportation expenses.
Won’t you be a part of the solution? You can help create a healthy future for foster youth and for your community. For more information, please contact Babette Orendain, by email at borendain@emqff.org or by phone (530) 747-3139.
Family Finding
The Family Finding program at EMQ FamiliesFirst helps reconnect foster children with safe, healthy families. Using Internet search technology and dogged perseverance, biological family members are found for children who otherwise have no one.
Family Finding relies heavily on private donations:
Read more about Family Finding at EMQ FamiliesFirst.
Adoption Day Book Project
New in 2009, the Adoption Day Book Project provides adoptive families with books that tell the story of adoption in various situations and age groups which parallel their own emerging family story. The Adoption Social Worker writes a message inside the book and gives it to the child and family on the day they finalize the adoption in court.
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Anderson family on adoption day.
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These literary gifts are intended to encourage ongoing communication and openness about adoption, and to serve as a symbol and reminder of a day worth celebrating.
Our hope for the near future is to provide new adoptive parents with a year’s subscription to Adoptive Families, a magazine filled with useful resources and articles for adoptive parents. Your donation can support the purchase of books and subscriptions for foster families.
Sample titles of books given through the project include:
"A Blessing from Above" by Patti Henderson
"A Mother for Choco" by Keiko Kasza
"Love You Forever" by Robert Munsch and Sheila McGraw
"Siempre te Querre" (translated to Spanish) by Robert Munsch and Sheila McGraw
"I Wished for You" by Marianne Richmond
"Welcome Home Forever Child" by Christine Mitchell
"My New Family: A First Look at Adoption" by Pat Thomas
"Chicken Soup for the Adopted Soul" by LeAnn Thiemen
Holiday Giving
For a foster child, the holidays can be an especially difficult time, missing family traditions and closeness. Your donation during the holidays helps a child experience the warmth and magic of the holidays. Click on these links to find out more about Foster Santa or the Holiday Giving program in your area.
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