Looking Back and Anticipating What’s to Come
To our wonderful volunteers, donors, and supporters:
What a year it’s been for There’s Always Room! As 2023 comes to a close, I want to gratefully reflect on the ways that your support has served children in foster care this past year.
January started out with a lot of big hopes and dreams as we looked to move out of a basement space and into our own building. This wouldn’t come to fruition until later in the year, but until then, we worked hard to build awareness throughout the Lansing area community. Our 3rd annual Easter Basket Fundraiser was a huge success, with 50 children receiving full-size, personalized Easter baskets (double our numbers from 2022!).
As summer began, we were made aware of an opportunity to rent a building in Williamston. We knew that we would need to secure more funding to sign a lease, so we kicked off our Make More Room Campaign and applied for a few local grants.
September was a busy month as we started a monthly support group for foster and adoptive moms. This group exists to create a community of support for local foster moms, with trainings, discussion times, and lots of coffee and treats! We look forward to seeing how this group continues to grow in the new year.
By the time October rolled around and we were ready to move into the new space, we had raised enough money to do so! What a blessing! Moving into our new location really ramped up involvement from the community and an increased need from foster families. There have been many weeks where we get requests for YES Bags on a daily basis, and I am always responding to people interested in donating clothing and other necessities to our organization.
In November, our board grew from two members to five! Amanda, Lisa, and Kirsten willingly joined our team and have already been instrumental in advancing our mission. We also ran our second annual Pajama Project campaign in November! Thanks to an incredibly generous group of individuals, organizations, and churches, we collected 141 pairs of Christmas pajamas and 100 Christmas gifts to give to local children in foster care. We even had a few extras donated that we have used to give to children who come into care right around Christmas.
Now, as we prepare for 2024, we look forward to continuing our mission while setting some new goals:
Build/purchase a LOT of shelving to hold our many storage totes.
Present our organization to all local foster care agencies to raise awareness.
Present to at least 20 local churches and 20 local businesses to raise community support and awareness.
Create a DIY hair care line to serve African American children in foster care.
Host foster family dinners at our new location this summer (we are adjacent to a huge park!).
Kick off a “Birthday Bag” program to bless children who celebrate their birthdays in foster care.
We have lofty dreams for 2024, but I’m confident that with your support and that of those in our incredible community, we can serve every child in foster care in Ingham County. There’s always room!
Blessings,
Moriah Bowman
Director