About how Foster Hope helps children
Foster Hope is a registered charity which provides the basics for children going into foster care. It came about as a result of Landmark Education courses Louise Allnutt completed in ’09.
Louise, who came to NZ in ’95 and now runs Monty’s Promotions in Auckland, started a project in July ’09 which involved collecting knitted beanies for babies in Africa. A few months later, Sam Weir, a 21 year old foster mum, approached her to find out how she had done it as Sam had come up with the idea of collecting teddy bears for children in South Auckland going into foster care. By this stage, Louise was doing her SELP course so was quick to inspire Sam to think HUGE and to not think twice about making some pretty unreasonable requests along the way. They set up a Facebook page and within a month had collected 500 bears via Bears2Care and 300 soft toys via Cudddles2Keep. They were able to donate the 300 soft toys to children at Women's Refuge and Grandparents Raising Grandchildren.
In January ’10, encouraged by the support that the Bears2Care project had received, Sam came up with the Kits2Kids concept. As a foster parent herself, she knew first hand what it was like to take in children who arrived in the middle of the night with nothing but the clothes on their backs. The kits contain basics for the children to take to their new homes so that the foster parent would be able to focus on the child's emotional needs when they arrive, rather than having to run around doing last minute/late night shopping. Another Facebook page was set up which grew rapidly as people shared the news about the latest plan to provide these children, whose lives were in turmoil, something to hold onto of their very own.
Foster Hope Charitable Trust was established in February ’10 after a determined Sam convinced Louise that the mountains of red tape and paperwork involved weren’t nearly as daunting as they looked if you just took it one step at a time. The product donations started rolling in from businesses around New Zealand and the new website compliments of Shard Software launched us to the whole world and has seen monetary pledges come in from as far afield as Abu Dhabi!
We networked around the country and the encouraging comments from a number of people on chat sites and on our Kits2Kids Facebook page have endorsed just how much something like this is needed. A number of supporters in the South Island were keen to get involved and as we worked through viable ways of transporting donated items from one end of the country to the other, we struck it lucky with Ngarie Worsley who runs Wish B & B in Christchurch.
Her background is in Child Development and psychology. She has a B.Ed and an MSE in Esoteric Psycology. She began working as a secondary teacher over 20 years ago and gradually found her vocation working with young homeless parents and challenged children. Ngarie and her family came to NZ for a" 3 week holiday" in ’99 and after travelling for 5 months decided to not use the return tickets. In NZ she has worked in Early Childhood Education and related fields and has come on board with Foster Hope heading up the South Island division where she coordinates the donated items for the packs and distributes them to local agencies.
Jess Anderson joined us in May 2010 to set up the Wellington branch. She's married to Michael and has a son named Mac aged 2. They fostered children for 2.5 years after unsuccessfully becoming parents naturally and have been blessed with Mac permanently through Home For Life. Mac came to them at 5 days old and they’ve never looked back. She lives in Paraparaumu and is a stay at home mum with wee Mac. Together with Michael, she started the Foster Hope Wellington branch because they know that children turn up on your doorstep with nothing and also to help prevent that in their own community. "Children are our future and if we don’t look after them, how will they look after themselves."
We are constantly amazed at the generosity of Kiwis and would love you to join us in any way you can so that we can make up packs to make these children’s lives a little more bearable.
The Under 85kg Development Rugby Team wore our logo proudly when they took on the Beecroft NSW Australian team and beat them 17/16 on the 31/3/2010. They raised $360 on the night for Foster Hope. Thank you so much for getting behind us to raise funds to buy items we're missing for the packs.
Foster Hope’s registered charity number is CC43568 and all monetary donations are tax deductible.
"As one person I cannot change the world, but I can change the world of one person." ~ Paul Shane Spear
Yasmin, Roxy and Madison with the Cuddles to Keep soft toys.
The Foster Hope rugby jersey auctioned for fundraising.