Volunteers support local foster families

HAYS COUNTY – More than 30 volunteers have raised $91,500 to support children and families in foster care.

There are more than 4,000 children and youth in foster care in Central Texas, according to nonprofit Austin Angels. About 50% of foster homes close within the first year; 50% of youth in care graduate from high school; and 3% of former foster youth will graduate from college, while one in five former foster youth will become homeless after they are 18 years old.

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Sara Hale, executive director of Austin Angels.[/caption]

Austin Angels was established in December 2009 when founder and CEO Susan Ramirez decided to volunteer with her friends once a month. Later in 2010, she attended a conference called “Together for Adoption,” where she was encouraged by her client to go to a presentation on foster care. While she was initially uninterested because she did not feel called to foster, she attended anyway and left the conference focused on meeting the needs of children in foster care and their caretakers.

The organization’s mantra became: “Not everyone is called to foster, and not everyone is called to adopt, but anyone can make a difference in a child's life.”

“Our approach is very innovative because we engage community members to really step in to support their neighbors and their kids’ classmates by volunteering and building community by foster families,” said Sara Hale, executive director of Austin Angels. “Fostering can be really lonely. It can be very isolating and what we do is provide support so foster homes stay open and kids are not bounced around from house to house … A big goal of our program is to keep kiddos in the same home so they can heal and grow.”

Thirty-two volunteers of the 10th class of the Ascension Leadership Academy unanimously decided that Austin Angels was in need of their time and support.

“There is a various group of leaders in the community that learned about this waitlist for children and families being able to access more support as they go through the foster care system,” said Amy Sprouse, press liaison for the Ascension Leadership Academy Fundraising Team.

The team’s initial goal was to raise $87,000 by Thursday, Feb. 16; however, that quickly changed when they raised more than that amount on Saturday, Feb. 11. Now, they are eying to reach at least $100,000 by Thursday.

Sprouse added that the fundraising has been from simply calling people on the phone.

“It’s been really cool to see what people coming together can do,” Sprouse said. “People are not bystanders to what’s going on in society. They are actively participating whether they know it or not. Either they are tolerating it or doing something about it. I’ve never seen $100,000 raised in less than 20 days for a cause like this that’s totally local. We will have a fundraising event, but everything that’s been raised so far has come from making phone calls.”

Hale has been amazed to see the work the volunteer team has done within a short amount of time.

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Love Box is one of the many programs that Austin Angels offers. For this specific program, the volunteers commit to showing up in meaningful ways at least once a month by providing personalized care packages to meet practical needs or it can be the act of providing a meal, babysitting or taking the kids to do a specific activity.[/caption]

“It’s pretty incredible when people in the community are willing to use their talents to help us with our mission and sometimes that means volunteering, supporting a foster family directly, mentoring a youth directly [or] donating so we can continue this work,” Hale said.

“And other times, it’s using their networks to fundraise so we can serve more families. It’s very impactful for our work.

With the money they have raised, we are able to add another case manager to our team, which means 45 more families are served.”

In 2019 Hale joined the Spokane Angels board, where she served for a year and also participated in the Love Box program.

She ultimately accepted a position at the Austin chapter to continue serving children and families.

“Austin Angels started here in Austin and grew pretty quickly into a national organization when other cities found out about our programs, called and said, ‘Hey, foster care needs help in our city. Can we do this as well?’” Hale said.

“We’ve been able to open 22 chapters nationwide … As I got to know the organization, I really felt in my gut that I was being called to work for Austin Angels.”

The volunteer team is also creating a multisport recreational complex at Austin Angels, located at 401 FM 967 in Buda, that will house basketball, pickleball and tennis courts as well as storage for equipment.

The groundbreaking event for the complex was held on Monday, Feb. 13 at 10:30 a.m.

For more information about the project, visit www. alaeq.com/austinangels.