Why Thrive?

From Our Family’s Heart to Yours

When my husband and I became foster parents to a teen, we met young teenagers living in a child welfare shelter who were being sex trafficked. This horrified us, and taking our cue from Jesus who’s anger at people being merchandised caused him to flip tables (John 2:15-16), we went into action. We started praying about what it would take to get children out of shelters and into foster homes.  Before we knew it, Made to Thrive came alive - believing that our children and teens aren’t made to just survive - they are MADE TO THRIVE!

Finding loving homes for children and youth in foster care.

In 2022, there were over 407,000 children and youth in foster care. About 159,800 of these children and youth were able to be placed with family members or family friends after being removed from their caregivers. This left about 247,200 children and youth in need of non-relative foster homes. (childwelfare.gov)

Also in 2022, there were about 380,000 churches in the United States. (National Congregational Study Survey)

Doing the math, these statistics indicated to us that if each church had one foster family to take in one child, there would be more than enough homes and the need for child welfare shelters would be eradicated.  

How do we connect churches with children and youth in need of placement in a loving home? 

True to her heart, my Mom came up with the idea of creating “baseball cards” for the kids and teens that are in care locally to the churches we visit. These cards have initials, age, gender, and fun facts about the youth in our communities who are living in shelters. We have found that making each child a person instead of a statistic changes people’s hearts towards them, making it easier to place that child.

Will you join us on this journey? 

Please invite us to speak at your organization or church and we will bring our “baseball cards”, each one representing a hopeful young person, looking for a loving home.