For a healthy community: Waynesboro nonprofit aids foster youth, families with outreach

Foster Love Ministries was founded eight years ago in Waynesboro to provide support for biological and foster families in the hopes of creating healthy communities.

“Our outreach is aimed at not everybody wants to become a foster parent, but everyone wants to help,” Foster Love Ministries Co-founder and Executive Director Jennifer-Rose Eccles said.

Burnout of foster parents is 70 percent within the first year.

“We want to make sure we’re keeping our resource families healthy,” Eccles said.

FLM provides healthy food and diet information for foster families.

The nonprofit adopted 17 children in local residential or group homes who do not have families and will provide Christmas gifts for them.

FLM provides backpacks for foster children when they move homes instead of their using trash bags which Eccles calls “dehumanizing.”

“We try to provide a little bit of joy on a very difficult day,” Eccles said.

Backpacks are available for binary individuals. “We try to be as inclusive as possible.”

On annual social worker appreciation days, FLM provides lunch for local social workers.

On Saturday, the nonprofit held its second annual Breakfast with Santa event. Eighty children participated in last year’s event and this year 300 children participated thanks to a generous donor, who wished to remain anonymous. The donor called and asked to pay for one ticket for a child in need, but then asked how many tickets were left. The donor bought the remaining tickets totaling $1,200.

“We were able to serve more of our vulnerable community,” Eccles said of the donation, which enables FLM to continue programs and services.

FLM also provides prevention services for children who are at-risk of entering foster care. Trauma-informed meetings are held monthly, and outreach and education is provided according to community needs.

“Saturday’s event could not have been possible without our board who created an environment — it was just magical,” Eccles said of “Breakfast with Santa.”

She added that board and committee members went above and beyond to support the community.

Community members who wish to donate and help FLM’s programs and mission may do so by visiting its website. The nonprofit’s fundraising goal is $12,000, and a donor has said they will match $3,000 when $12,000 has been reached.