We had our Pack A Purse Drive Purse Packing Party on Saturday, December 12th at the Laurel Boys and Girls Club. It was AMAZING!!! So many donations and volunteers gave of their time, talent, money, and purses to benefit teen girls in foster homes, group homes, and homeless shelters. The ultimate outcome was to show teen girls in foster care that someone cares.
What I didn’t realize until later in the evening after the Purse Packing Party ended was that December 12th is Foster Children’s Day. Foster Children’s Day, as a national day of community resource building for current and former foster youth. What am AWESOME coincidence!
After spending 16 years in foster care and subsequently emancipating out, Heather O’Neil created Foster Children’s Day, in the state of New Jersey, in 2000. An amazing coalition’s mission is to establish national recognition of Foster Children’s Day, every December 12th, where:
• Awareness is built about the unique backgrounds and potential of current and former foster youth
• Community resources are connected or built, to exclusively benefit current and former foster youth that are severely impacted by “the system”
• Recognition and action for current and former foster youth that are being left without family, positive connections, and platform to succeed
The symbolic nature and importance of Foster Children’s Day being on December 12th, is based on the placement of this day in the middle of numerous holidays. Each holiday has an underlying theme of bringing family and friends, together. Foster Children’s Day will build a family, consisting of those that have been left without a stable family and network of positive connections, due to their time in foster care, and those that are dedicated advocates for current and former foster youth.
Even though it was established and recognized in New Jersey, Foster Children’s Day has always been an effort to build a national solution to the national epidemic of current and former foster youth not having access to the resources that their non-former foster youth peers take for granted, as they transition into adult life. In 2012, a national bill was put in front of the United States House of Representatives, to establish December 12th, as a nationally recognized Foster Children’s Day. They have spent 14 years proving Foster Children’s Day, by:
• Establishing awards for current/former foster youth and advocates
Building free driving lessons for emancipated youth
• Establishing financial literacy training
• Working with local, state, and national policymakers to build resources that do not utilize public funding
• Building other resources that are solely intended to benefit and be provided directly to current and former foster youth
The coalition will continue to tirelessly build resources for our brothers and sisters that have most severely been impacted by foster care, as Foster Children’s Day becomes recognized, across the entire nation.
Nicki Sanders, The Packaged For Success Coach, is an experienced trainer, group facilitator, and program manager. She has packaged her Masters of Social Work degree and over 15 years of work experience into Packaged For Success, a training and professional development company. Packaged For Success provides career coaching to college students, entry-level job hunters, and experienced employees seeking a promotion. Packaged For Success also offers communication and productivity improvement training for employees and supervisors and provides consultation on building sustainable, impactful, socially responsible community programs.
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