The greatest gift you can give us on our 20th birthday is the gift of school supplies! Help us celebrate 20 years of supporting foster families by making a $20 donation and help fulfill our kids’ school supply needs. We currently have 40 school-age children and teens living in our homes and they all need various school supplies ranging from crayons to graphing calculators. Our goal today is to raise $2,500 to ensure each child is equipped with all the resources they need to have a successful start to the school year, whether that’s in person or virtual.

Two ways to donate: 

via Facebook Fundraiser

via our website, https://angelsarms.kindful.com/

Please note: In an effort to keep our families and supporters healthy, we’ve chosen to host a back to school fundraiser instead of collecting school supplies. This method will allow us to directly distribute gift cards to our foster families and allow them to purchase the school supplies themselves through online deliveries and curbside pick up. Thank you in advance for your support

With the uncertainty revolving around the upcoming school year, we are anticipating most of the 55 children living in our 13 homes to be learning from home.

Wish list ➡️ https://a.co/d2A5qfl

The wish list above is comprised of electronics that our families have specifically requested in order to help with their homeschooling. We hope you will consider purchasing something from this wish list or even making a donation via our website. If you do purchase something from our wish list, please sign your name on the card so we can thank you properly.

For most of our homes, this virtual learning presents new problems we have never faced before. “With 7 children having to quarantine for 14 days every time a child is exposed, we would never be allowed to leave home between school and family visits,” says one of our foster parents. “I already have a child at home quarantined. We are forced into total virtual education again.” We are grateful that our families are healthy and safe, but this is brand new terrain that the children and parents living in our homes will have to learn to navigate. We hope to provide some assistance during these trying times.

To avoid group gatherings and the contact required of walk-ins and drop-offs, all donations will be conducted online and handled via shipping services. We are not accepting used donations at this time. We hope for your understanding of our decision to maintain reasonable distance and protection of one another.

Like many of you, we have witnessed the protest and community unrest over the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmad Arbery and Breonna Taylor. Angels’ Arms would like to express our sincerest condolences to those families. Angels’ Arms cares deeply about the foster parents, children and the communities we serve. We hurt for black and brown people and the pain they have endured and continue to endure.

In the midst of a pandemic that is disproportionately impacting communities of color, we are reminded of the inequalities these communities have faced and continue to face. Angels’ Arms stands against racism, police brutality and all forms of injustice. Angels’ Arms also stands alongside those brave enough to serve and protect our communities honorably and who are left to answer for those who do not. We are grateful for all of our supporters who stand with us and are demanding change.

Angels’ Arms is committed to this change and to creating more opportunities for foster children and youth, families and communities of color. These communities experience daily undiagnosed trauma with no real outlet or escape. We are engaging in internal reflection and change that moves through our board, our staff, and our families. We are diversifying our Board of Directors and our Junior Board. We are engaging in real discussion with our supporters and our staff. We are extending our outreach to even more communities in St. Louis City and County, as well as St. Charles and other surrounding areas.

We would like to do more. We are open to listening and learning all we can do to help make some much-needed change happen through dialogue, and more importantly, through action. We invite you to join us as we continue to strive for change. All of us share the responsibility to understand why the playing field is not level for people of color, and how we can help to level it out.

Things here at Angels’ Arms are always changing and evolving. As mentioned in one of our previous blog posts, this summer has been dedicated to transitioning several of our homes. Just last week we welcomed the newest residents in one of our St. Louis City homes, the McDevitt’s.

Mary and Jim McDevitt have been fostering for over seven years and they focus on caring for infants with medical needs. They’ve dedicated their lives to helping foster children and we’re thrilled to welcome them to the Angels’ Arms family.

“We are overjoyed to be members of the Angels’ Arms family,” says Mary McDevitt. “We look forward to continuing to serve our community by providing a safe and loving home while partnering with community members. The children are the real winners when we all come together with love to serve them. I know the children in our home will grow in so many ways as they see how much those in the community love them. We look forward to supportive relationships with like-minded families whom we can help support and draw strength from as well.”

*A fun-fact about our new family: Mary used to work at Professor Bear’s Daycare in St. Louis City, and she was a caregiver for none other than Abbey, our Communications Coordinator. What a small world!*

Thank you to the following businesses and individuals who helped the McDevitt family move and transition into their new home with Angels’ Arms:

• Two Men and a Truck for once again donating four men and two trucks to help move this family into their new home
• Jim and Maggie Lang for donating a washer and dryer
• Mary Rateman for donating a recliner/ rocking chair to help rock the babies to sleep
• The countless volunteers that have turned this house into a home by painting almost every room in the house, cleaning the floors and sprucing up the yard
• Last, but most certainly not least, a special shout out to our Maintenance Manager Tom for contributing innumerable hours working on this house to get it ready for this new loving family. Tom worked on weekends and even into the evenings several times making sure everything was in tip-top shape