Project Greene Light 5K + Fun Run

It the last day of National Adoption Month and I know I didn't say much about it this year. It goes without saying that we are pro-adoption around here.  We are also pro-family preservation; and pro- foster care; and pro-reunification.  There are so many variables to adoption and the internet has turned into a somewhat ugly place at times, so I stay quiet occasionally when maybe I shouldn't. I feel like I haven't shared enough about Brad's organization this fall as they gear up for their 5k, so I wanted to spend a little time on that today.

There is nothing easy about foster care.  Even the stories that seem neat + tidy began with loss + heartbreak. There are so many facets to it that I would do an injustice if I were to try and explain it all right this minute.  I really just want to explain a bit about what Project Greene Light is doing and help you understand why it is important.  I would love for you to sign-up for the 5k & Fun Run this month.  You can join us locally, or register for a virtual 5K {and then whether you actually run a 5k or not is completely up to you and you still get a cool shirt out of the deal}

PGL {Project Greene Light} is going to open an Emergency Placement Home for children coming into foster care in Russell County.  Currently, when children are brought into foster care they go to the county office or the sheriff's department.  And they wait until a placement can be found. This involves phone calls to open foster homes, and if none are available in-county then the search widens to out-of-county homes.

PGL believes their Emergency Placement Home will be an excellent alternative to the current situation.  Children will come directly to the home.  Hopefully, caseworkers will be able to complete their interviews with the children right in the home, then go back to their office to begin finding the just-right placement.  Meanwhile, the children will be able to play with age appropriate toys, change into clean clothes if they want to, and relax in the family room.  The staff will be able to give the kids as much attention as they need because someone else is making the phone calls to find their placement.

Children will be able to stay in the PGL Emergency Placement Home for up to 30 days.  The home will house 7-10 children.

To illustrate the need, here is a story about sibling boys. Initially, these two little guys were placed with a grandmotherly foster momma.  She loved them well, but they were just "too much" for her.  Within weeks of the placement they needed to move.  A foster momma was called on vacation and asked if she would consider taking them.  She cut her vacation short, hopped in her car to drive home, and called the caseworker to say "don't you dare separate those babies."

I don't doubt for a second that the caseworkers would have done everything in their power to keep those boys together.  Every caseworker that I have met cares deeply about every child in their care.  But the resources are limited, the number of open foster homes is limited, and time is limited.

Sometimes, the foster momma can't cut her vacation short.  Sometimes they just need a few days and then they will be available to receive the placement. Having a safe place like PGL's Emergency Placement Home means more siblings can stay together.  It means more local foster children can stay in-county and attend their same schools.  It means willing foster parents can take a few hours or few days to ready themselves for their coming placement - and in doing so be better able to meet the needs of the kiddos they are welcoming into their homes.

It won't solve every problem and it won't make foster care easy.  But it will serve well as a necessary support for those that are doing the hard work.  Consider being a part of it with us?

Click this link to register here.

Feel free to share this far and wide, registration rates go up tomorrow.

#ThemeParkTherapy

A long, long time ago I was a classroom teacher.  I was awesome at some parts of it {my bulletin boards were spectacular!} and not-so-terrific at other parts {my plan-book was sub-par apologies to anyone that ever subbed for me}.

There are some moments I will always treasure from that time.  One in particular was a field trip to Lake Michigan.  We took our 4th grade classes across the state to PJ Hoffmaster State Park.  The majority of those kiddos had never seen a Great Lake, so when they got to end of the trail and the trees gave way to the dunes + the shoreline their surprise was audible.  It was so precious.
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In case you have never seen a Great Lake yourself, here you go:

See?  Beautiful, right?
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But back to the point.  The kiddos were just so surprised and delighted and awed by it and we got to see it all over their faces and hear it in their voices.  The students that showed no interest in math were enthralled by what they were seeing.  Students that were typically quiet in the classroom were suddenly chatty.  This experience leveled the playing field - we were all fascinated by the scene. I'm so grateful I was able to be a part of it.

I was thinking about this trip to Lake Michigan because The Cora Reid Greene Home for Children has launched a new program.  Its called "Theme Park Therapy" -- aka #ThemeParkTherapy.  The hope is to give foster families this type of shared experience to treasure for always.  A day when kids get to be kids and parents get to witness delight and awe and joy.  The goal is to send 56 foster kiddos + parents to Six Flags {its not Lake Michigan but I think the kiddos will love it nonetheless!}.  The total cost is $2500.  Basically, a donation of $45 would cover admission, lunch, + transportation to the park for one person.  Not a bad deal.

I love that the organization is covering the cost for the children as well as the parents, and that they thought to cover lunch and transportation as well.  Our family has been at a theme park before and felt a little stressed-out about the cost of food, or wondered if the entrance fee was really worth it.  Have you been there too?  This program eliminates that tension for the foster family altogether and just allows for them to have a special day together.

There are so many struggles that children in foster care face, they often miss out on some very basic childhood moments.   A trip like this can help restore a little bit of what has been lost.  It won't solve every problem or magically erase trauma and heartbreak, but it can give a foster family a delightful shared experience.  We recently read an article online from Foster Focus Magazine and it outlines a similar program and the results they have observed.  You can read Disney Therapy: Just a Spoonful of Sugar here.

The Cora Reid Greene Home for Children has set-up a special paypal page for donations specific to this program.  You can find it by clicking here.  

Also, Brad has encouraged crowd-funding for this as well. You can set up a fundraising page on Pure Charity and have your friends donate directly to your page.  This would be a super easy way for a Sunday School class or youth group to rally around our foster care community.  You can click here to find out more about this option.

If you have any questions about the program you can comment here or on The Cora Reid Greene Home for Children facebook page.  And don't forget to share this!

confession

Y'all!  I have felt behind all summer long.  You know that feeling of just not getting all-the-things-done?

Of course, we have had some major changes in our lives this summer, but even so, I sometimes forget to give myself grace -- and I forget to ask God to help me order my day.  That combination leaves me irritable, discontent, and rather edgy.  And once I land in that place, I heap a little guilt on top for being such a crabby-pants to everyone about everything.  I also tend to speak in sweeping generalizations. 

This week, though, I lifted my eyes up + out instead of in.  I stopped looking at the growing list of things-that-need-to-be-finished and asked God to speak truth to my heart.  (Via this song.  Daily.)

I feel the cloud lifting, the light shining, and the hope growing.  I had the lovely pleasure of sharing the story of Brad's job hunt with a friend at PWOC yesterday and I was reminded all over again about His unmistakable sovereignty.  Its enough to make a weary soul giddy.  How generous that He would give us a story like that to call our own. 

As always, one of the things that brought me out of the fog was walking into the Emergency Foster Care Supply closet.  It was a mess.  A sure sign that it had been a busy summer.  Every child that receives something from that closet has arrived there through heartbreak of some kind or another.  Through no fault of their own.  Every. Single. Child.  I often feel like I am standing on some sort of Holy Ground in the middle of that closet.

I had a helper meet me there and we were able to sort though all the new donations and get the racks re-sorted.  There were some piles of clothes left on a shelf in June, because I had run out of appropriate-sized hangers; so we were able to fill in some of the gaps with those items.

Here is a simple list of the current needs.  The goal is to have 3  NEW outfits in every size.

* a note about shoes:  We have 0 pairs of shoes of the sizes listed.  It would be OK to have multiples in every size available.  {Although we do have 7 pair of girls' 10T; and 5 pair of boys' 11T}

Also, we are critically low on diapers - size 3 and up.  Underwear of all sizes is also in low supply.  And bags.  We are down to 6 cinch-sacs from the last bag drive in March. 

Thanks for your continued support friends!  There will be some exciting opportunities coming up soon to help stock a boutique for foster kids through The Cora Reid Greene Home {Brad's job}.  I can hardly wait to tell you all the details. 

work day

We had our first work day at the office of Brad's new job.  Let me explain that a little bit because I was asked a few times about this.  The organization, The Cora Reid Greene Home for Children, has two facilities.  One is a house {where we will live!}, the other is a commercial building.  The commercial building is home to:  Brad's office, a kitchen, a meeting room, and a clothing closet.  It has been used for a number of purposes and has been the catch-all for donations and other "useful" items.  It is 4000 square feet.  It hasn't been used on a regular basis for about a year.

Brad's daily work over the last few weeks was getting the place usable again.  It took him a day or two just to get his office space cleared out enough so he could begin to make phone calls and take notes.  He knew he would need help in getting the rest of the 3800 sq feet in working condition.

He set up a FB event and spread the word.  He arranged for a dumpster to be delivered. Thankfully, I think God sent the exact right number of people to help.  Too many more people and we would've been stumbling over one another.

Later Saturday evening, I asked Brad to really consider what it would've been like if it were just our family trying to clear out the place -- or just our family plus the family that volunteered to watch our littlest dudes.  The work would be so tedious and our progress would be so slow.  Shudders.

But like I said, there was the just-right-number of helpers.  The kitchen got a good deep cleaning.  The chest freezer from Montgomery Ward was removed.  Broken desks and well-worn couches were carried out as well as the surplus furniture that filled the common space.  The furniture that was still in good condition was placed near the road in hopes that somebody would be able to use it. The bins of toys were sorted so there were no longer broken and random parts mixed in with the good toys. The damaged books were removed from the shelves.   We began sorting the bags + bags of clothing that lined the walls of the clothing closet.  We didn't even begin to sort the clothes or shoes that were already on display.  The stuffed animals were all piled into a bin, they had the familiar smell of musty old building that is near impossible to remove.  The building was getting empty and the dumpster was getting full.

Eventually, people came to look at the furniture pieces near the road.  Children came to play with the stuffed animals and broken toys.  People started peering over the side of the dumpster.  There was a little confusion inside-the-building about what was happening outside-the-building. I looked out the window from the second story and was mildly surprised by the scene.  There were easily 15-20 children climbing on the furniture, each carrying a stuffed animal with them.   I saw one child carrying a chair upside down over his head.  I think he turned around about a-half-block-away to bring it back.  Cars pulled up to the curb and rolled their windows down to inquire about this furniture the kids were climbing on.  Some of the guys went out to let people know they could take whatever furniture they wanted.

Before long, lunch was delivered.  We stopped the work to give thanks and break bread.  It was nice to hear just a bit more about some of the other volunteers' stories.  There were a couple foster parents present as well as foster-parents-to-be.  There were board members too, and I was grateful to finally meet a few more of them.  One of Brad's former co-workers and his wife came out to help.  There was a good mix of folks from Cascade Hills, the community, and hard-working kiddos too.  I enjoyed just looking around the room at the people that were gathered.

A few minutes after the work resumed, a gas leak was discovered.  That put a quick halt to the work.  A handful of us sat outside chatting awhile, waiting for the gas-leak-checker-guy (not the correct job title) to arrive.  A very animated man inquired about the furniture that remained.  I didn't hear Brad's answer, but I heard the man reply, "Good Lord, I'd love to have that in my living room!"  They moved aside his selection and he made plans to come back for it shortly.  And he did.  Whoever he found to pick up the items took a few pieces as well.

There were a few items still sitting in the parking lot near the building when I left.  I figured they wouldn't be there the next day {which was fine.} 

The gas-leak-checker-guy did end up finding two gas leaks.  He was able to shut off the gas and thankfully it wasn't worse.  Brad, Wilson, and Walker were the only ones around when he left so they just shut everything up for the night.

Brad went by yesterday to pick some stuff up that he had left.  He spent a good chunk of time re-collecting trash from the dumpster that had been distributed throughout the parking lot and the adjoining yard. He said it took him about 40 minutes.  He did the same thing this morning, too.  There was also additional trash added to the parking lot near the dumpster.  Thankfully, the dumpster should be picked up today.

Brad was really encouraged by the amount of work that was accomplished (even with the additional trash collections).  It was encouraging to me to see him so encouraged.  There is still so much work to be done, but it is obvious that God will send the right workers at the right time. 

I'm not yet able to put words around how proud I am of Brad, or how grateful I am that God chose Brad for this job.  Exciting seems like such a flimsy word to describe how we are feeling, but these are definitely exciting times.