Atlanta Vibha Youth at Work
The Vibha Youth of Atlanta spent their summer not only having fun outdoors, but also playing their part in helping the community by creating awareness and volunteering. On June 22, they visited the Fostercare Support Foundation to help sort, stock, and clean up various items that were going to be donated to children at foster care.
About Fostercare Support Foundation?
Foster Care Support is a 501c3 non-profit organization with the mission to (1) Enrich the lives of Georgia’s foster children, and (2) Help acquire and retain foster parents
- The Organization serve a vital and growing need throughout the state of Geogia by providing free clothing, infant equipment and developmental toys to thousands of foster children in foster care. They also serve grandparents raising grandchildren and relatives caring for relative’s children for a limited time.
- They receive financial support and donations of new and slightly used items from individuals, organizations, and companies.
- They do not sale anything to the foster children. Metro area foster parents and children come to their Distribution Center to “shop” for free goods.
- http://www.fostercares.org
How did our youth volunteer there?
They helped them sort out the books and toys, clean the donated items, separated cloths, stocked up the shop, and went for shopping!!!
At the Fostercare collection center all type of donations are accepted.
What do the volunteers do with this items?
- The toys and plastic items are thoroughly cleaned and inspected for the working condition.
- Electronic toys are inspected for the working condition and the batteries are replaced.
- Books are sorted out for the age appropriate reading and categories.
- Clothes are separated as per the seasonal requirements and as per the different sizes.
- Bed sheets and blankets are paired to make the set.
- Shoes and other accessories are also separated according to the age specific requirement.
So we cleaned and sorted the things What next?
The distribution center is divided in 2 parts. Collection and sorting out area, and the store adjacent to that.
All the cleaned and sorted out items gets stocked up in the store where the foster parents come for shopping. Shopping does not mean buying the things because foster parents cannot afford to buy the things. shopping means selecting the things for their kids which the fostercare support organization is going to give them.
The parents would register their kid’s names and get the shopping list. The list specifies which and how many items each foster kid would get. Our volunteers helped the foster parents by taking this list and shopping the items from the store for them. Believe me, this was not an easy task. We had to make the pair of cloths from what was available there, had to select the matching accessories, select the basic required items, etc.
This was one part of the foundation – Collection and distribution. There is another part, where the donated goods which are not of a use to the kids, are sold at their Bargain Retail Shop and the proceeds are used to support more kids. May be next time we would be able to help them there too!
A very big thank you to those who came for this volunteering event and helped the local community and foster children, who are often deprived of love and happiness in life.