How to Show Foster Parents Appreciation

Foster care embodies the calling of love to care for the orphans and the struggling. It is a willingness to serve, a commitment to care, and an opportunity to love. Appreciation for foster parents is often overlooked but never forgotten, and the world needs more safe homes for children.

The decision to foster is comprised of many acts of selfless service; but most importantly, these selfless acts are a commitment to accept children in need of a home into your own. Foster care is a bold display of radical love.

We all have a calling to care for the orphaned. “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world,” James 1:27 NIV.

Looking after orphans includes being a refuge of care to children welcomed into temporary or new homes. And yet, there are still children in need of a saving refuge.

Foster families step in to care and “foster” a relationship with children who have been temporarily separated from their home. During this time, biological parents work to redirect their life to create a more stable environment for their children.

The number 18,000 represents children in Florida who are placed in out-of-home care (DCF Dashboard, 2023). In addition, this number also represents souls in need of the saving grace of God and hearts hoping that life is good and so is God.

And yet, so many times we see a broken system where life doesn’t always feel better, and people don’t always act better.

One More Child is grateful for the many families licensed with us who choose to love, support, and care for children. Our appreciation for them reaches beyond what we could put into words.

Our Fort Myers licensing team showed their foster parent appreciation by celebrating 64 foster families in the area – 80s style.

Each family leaves encouraged and equipped to fight for children in their care with tools to lovingly lead. After a special message from one of our foster licensing specialists, Chip Shotwell, the families enjoyed a dinner donated by Outback Steakhouse and Bruce L Scheiner.

The night concluded with a raffle of prizes donated by locals in the community, including:

• Chick-Fil-A on Pine Island with free meal cards.
• KayPhotography with a free photo session.
• Baker’s Delight with custom-made cookies and a gift card.
• Salty Sam’s Pirate Cruise with pirate souveiners and a pirate cruise.
• Jet’s Pizza with pizza for 50 children.
• Fort Myers Mighty Mussels with eight box seat tickets to raffle
• Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre with tickets for dinner and a show to raffle.
• Sunsplash Water Park with park entrance tickets.
• Ted’s Montana Grill with a gift basket and a gift card to raffle.
• A special thanks to Crossroads Baptist Church for hosting.