Page 2 - Stuart Exposure - December '19

Page 2, Stuart Exposure

Good Works

Biological, Foster Families Community Leaders Ring Bell; recruitment efforts of

Come Together For A Special Help Adoption Wishes Come True CCKids’ adoption-service
provider Children’s
Thanksgiving Dinner What do children in foster care really want for Christmas? Home Society.
They want a family to spend it with. “They have really
Biological families Communities Connected for Kids (CCKids) and the worked hard to find
joined their children and Judicial Circuit 19 Guardian ad Litem program are visiting matches for children
the foster families caring friends and counting down to Christmas this December with who historically are
for them for a very special #TCRings, a program to raise awareness for our community’s more difficult to match,”
T h a n k sg i v i n g d i n n e r needs for foster and adoptive homes. Kaiser said. “They’re
Saturday at the Sunlight Each day, we will visit a different community or business finding more homes for
Community Church in Port leader. That person will read a child’s adoption wish and ask large sibling groups, older
St. Lucie. the viewer a very important question: Can you help us make teens and children with
It was the Treasure a child’s wish for a family come true this holiday season? disabilities.”
Coast’s first co-parenting “These are interesting people with a lot of followers on Other reasons include
dinner arranged to help keep social media, so we hope they can help us increase awareness,” increased awareness
families who are recovering said Christina Kaiser, CCKids community relations director. generated by media
from crisis together during Those enlisted in the project include St. Lucie County Fire partners like News
the holiday. Albert Wilson Sr. and Rose Chief Nate Spera, Florida Senator Gayle Harrell and business Channel 12 and the
More than 25 people, Bailey attend the area’s first co- and media partners like the Hometown News, Tropicana and Forever Family program
including children, attended parenting Thanksgiving dinner Texas Roadhouse. and new match-making Will Havik and Isaac Ankenman
the dinner. The Albert together and share their story There’s even a circus family who comes down from the technology provided of the Momentum Foundation,
Wilson Foundation supplied about working together when trapeze to ring the bell, Kaiser said. by companies like the an organization that teaches
the turkeys, which were NFL Dolphins Star Albert Fewer than 20 percent of local children available for Selfless Love Foundation. aerial acrobatics in Port St. Lucie.
prepared by Fit Fixins, a Wilson Jr. was in foster care. adoption are without family matches – a record low for the Social media Foundation vice president Angel
local business that also Treasure Coast and Okeechobee. campaigns like #TCRings Havik and her son were among the
donated sides and other goodies. In fact, 114 out of 142 total children available for adoption also help. many local residents featured in the
A committee composed of QPI (Quality Parenting are matched to families and beginning the adoption process, #TCRings project, which will begin
Initiative) members and CCKids’ Caregiver Support staff said Kaiser, crediting the record percent of matches to the Good Works on page 3 airing Dec. 1.
coordinated the event.
“It’s an opportunity for children in foster care to
celebrate the holiday with their families while also
demonstrating the power of co-parenting,” said Jerra
Wisecup, who coordinated a similar project many years
ago in Georgia.
Co-parenting is a best practice championed in recent
years by QPI that encourages partnership between families
while children are in foster care. Research shows that co-
parenting creates better transitions for children returning
home and provides ongoing support to vulnerable families.
Among those at the event was Albert Wilson Sr., whose
son and namesake – and now an NFL player for the Miami
Dolphins – was in foster care. He sat at a table with Rose
Bailey, his son’s former foster mother.
“At first I thought everyone was against us because
they took my kid,” Sr. said, sharing his story with the
group. “But it doesn’t work that way – it’s OK, things
happen to all of us – but there’s somebody out there got
your back.”
Bailey said Albert Jr. left her home 20 years ago, but
he is still part of her family. And she is part of his.
“Anybody in this world is capable of that,” she said.
“We’re a village right here in this room, and we all need
Remember the Smell of
to pick one another up.”

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