What began as an idea and dream at the Correlli family’s kitchen table in 2006 filled the 2022 hotel ballroom with 500 supporters, volunteers and interested learners on October 6th.
It has become a non-profit organization of Fostering Hope, an extended support family where a team of volunteers from faith communities helps and supports foster parents. It also has a “family” support system for 18-year-old children who are about to step into the world of adults after graduating from the foster care system.
Under the leadership of Angela Caron, co-founder with her father, Nick Correlli, Fostering Hope has grown from a small group of trained volunteers serving two families to more than 800 volunteers and It now serves 156 foster families, Caron said at a fundraising community luncheon.
Underpinned by the power of family, the word “family” is essential to their work, in fact a necessity of life, not a luxury, Caron said.
“Love and belonging are fundamental to human prosperity,” Caron said. “No one has to go through this life alone, and I have discovered that there is no lonelier place than the foster world.”
The program has a team that is there for busy foster parents as well as grandparents and aunts and uncles. Maybe take the kids to sports or music classes, or even help adults with chores like cleaning the house, preparing meals, folding laundry. . Sometimes it’s just listening. And these relationships often last for years.
With the Fostering Hope Program firmly entrenched and growing, Volunteer Corrallis can walk away. Caron said she was “a wife, a daughter, a mother, an aunt, a niece and now a mother-in-law.” And one day she hopes to be her grandmother. Nick’s father is retired from the family construction company. Families gather at the Colorelli Family Foundation.
Caron announced: Like any good family, we had to learn when to let go.
Newsom said plans for the next phase are underway. ‘Stability in uncertainty’ is what Fostering Hope is ‘uniquely positioned to offer’. Their work, he said, helps bridge the gap by working with experts.
Newsom noted that children participating in the Fostering Hope Program are not sent back from foster home to foster home. This is a situation that, according to national statistics, often leads to juvenile justice systems. As for his education, “so far he’s 100% graduated or GED’d.”
“Foster parents, on the other hand, haven’t quit. In fact, they’re hiring. Our adoption rate is almost three times higher than unsupported families,” Newsome said.
We are also planning a foster parent reunion at the request of parents. Also in the works is a program to share the Fostering Hope model with other communities.
Luncheon speaker Elizabeth Velez-Garrett said Fostering Hope didn’t exist when she was growing up.
Her mother beat herself up in an attempt to protect her and her four older siblings from her father’s “drunk rage.” Their mother then disappeared. Their father said she abandoned them. Only a few years later, when her skeleton was found with a shot in the head, they believed that he had murdered her when she was divorcing and planning to run away with her children. I realized that I did.
Children became victims of his drunken rage. Social services were called, but he was a highly respected member of the community, and the children were too scared to tell the truth. she said. When evidence finally pointed to their father, he shot himself in their backyard.
“People entrusted to love and protect you can do great harm, but complete strangers can become family, such as teachers, bus drivers, and Fostering Hope volunteers. Neighbors adopted them, and Elizabeth went to law school, is now a family law attorney, and is married and a mother of teens.
Cathy Rose told her “adoptive mother story” and tearfully admitted how difficult it was. With the help of her volunteer team, she is now adopting her foster child.
The donations and pledges of the luncheon raised more than $180,000 for the Fostering Hope program.
