What We Do

Customized Placement Kits

When a child enters foster care, they often arrive with few or no belongings. We have encounter hundreds of kids that arrive with just the clothes they are wearing.

Foster families usually have little time to prepare for their arrival. To help ease this transition, we provide care kits for kids, which include items like: clothing, personal hygiene items, bedding, formula/bottles, school supplies, and a personal item to support them during their first few days. Each kit is tailored to the child and placed in a backpack or duffle bag. It is important to us that the children have a nice bag to transport their belongings in.

Our aim is to reduce the stress of shopping in those initial days and help the child feel valued and cared for. We want to give the child items to call theirs and to make their new house feel like a home.

Laundry Outsourcing

Parenting is tough and comes with many unique challenges. Everyday tasks such as laundry, cooking, cleaning, and helping with homework can often feel overwhelming, particularly with the additional responsibilities that come with fostering. This extensive process includes not only scheduling but also attending numerous doctor appointments, therapy sessions, and mandatory training courses designed to equip foster parents with essential skills.

To help lighten this considerable load, our Household Help Program offers a monthly cleaning service and laundry support tailored specifically for foster kids and their families. This assistance not only alleviates some of the stress for parents but also sends a powerful message to foster children that they are loved and supported by a caring community. We wholeheartedly want to ensure our foster youth have access to clean clothes and a tidy home environment that allows them to truly thrive.

Monthly House Cleanings

The Flower Pot Fund

The founder of Foster Kids KC, has fond memories of her grandpa’s flower pot that held emergency cash for the grandkids. Much like that, funds will be available to foster kids and families in times of need, an emergency, or if a child needs something special.

We have found a huge need for baby placements. We like to say it is our attempt at a “baby shower” for foster families. We are able to purchase car seats, cribs, pack n plays, strollers, swings, baby monitors, high chairs, changing tables, extra formula to hold over until WIC support goes into effect, etc. Often times these babies are suffering through drug withdrawal symptoms and having to fight hard to overcome difficulties they were born with.

As people are welcoming more children into their homes they are needing beds to accommodate- bunk beds are especially popular due to space restrictions. We purchase bed frames, mattresses, pillows, and bedding. We have also purchased several dressers.

For longer term placements we try to buy fun items such as bikes, water tables, skateboards, art supplies, scooters, etc. We have been able to sponsor kids weekly workouts, coding class, camps, etc. We have sent families to do fun activities.

We partnered with Abundant Life to throw a “Spring Fling”, a party for our foster families to come and just have fun. They are able to play with other foster families, eat, and enjoy a fun afternoon. This will be an annual party.

Hair Services

Hair care services are so much more than a vanity services. Witnessing the before and after of a foster child getting hair services is truly moving. Their confidence levels sky rocket. We often hear that this is the foster parent’s first time seeing the child really smile.

These youth have been through immense trauma, are in new homes, often in new schools, and their personal hygiene has often been neglected before entering foster care. Hair services help restore their dignity and confidence.

We partner with Retreat Salon and Spa, Morawasha, and Steady Cutz to provide hair services. They are great about giving hair care insight to foster parents. We include hair cuts, braiding, and barber services.

Meal Support

We have donated thousands of dollars in grocery support. Growing children are like endless pits and we understand how expensive this can be especially when school is out.

We provide home cooked meals for families monthly. These are freezer friendly meals that families can save for an extra busy night or towards the end of a month when finances are tight.

We currently provide six families three meals per month

We have wonderful volunteers who deliver homemade chicken noodle soup to foster families when a bug has taken over the house

Rent Support

Rent support is designed to help kinship placements as they adjust to having more mouths to feed, clothe, and care for. Often times the care giver has to move into a new home to accommodate the children coming into their care. Moving is expensive and normally requires deposits and 1-3 month’s rent paid upfront. Sometimes kinship placements receive government support, but this isn’t every case and it always takes months to receive. We help with initial fees (deposits, a month’s rent) or a monthly commitment of six months’ partial rent support. We love being able to help families stay together and out of foster care. We help these incredible family members who step up to take in their nieces/nephews/grandkids/siblings/etc.

Home Repairs

Home repairs is a service we offer to support foster families to make sure foster youth are in the best environment possible. We want to make a house more accommodating to children in need of a place to call home.