Ohio Made for Home Community Service
On October 20th, Fostering Family Ministries (FFM) will host the north-central Ohio Made for Home Community Service advocating for Churches to act to end the foster care crisis. The guest speaker, Ryan North, foster/adoptive dad and co-director of One Big Happy Home, will share about her stand that grew to impact the lives of thousands of vulnerable children. Bethel, 575 US 250 1 mile north of Savannah in Ohio will host the community service at 6:30-7:30pm. All community members are invited to attend the engaging event and learn how they can take action. Over 400,000 vulnerable children are in the foster care system in America. Every person who attends this event can impact at least one of those 400,000 children and will be given the opportunity to do so.
“We need to participate as a community. In the past 12 months, in your community it is likely that many foster kids have bounced between four different homes as we have stayed safe in our own homes,” said Director of FFM Sherry Bouquet. “When we come together, to raise awareness, raise foster homes and raise volunteers, we can give children stability, hope, and a future.” Ryan North, the guest speaker for FFM’s Made for Home Service, is a foster dad, adoptive dad, TBRI Practitioner, parent coach and co-director along with his wife Kayla of One Big Happy Home.
“We are experiencing the same crisis that Jill [Crumbacher] faced,” explained Bouquet. “There are currently nearly 3,000 children who are still in need of a forever home in the state of Ohio alone and 16,000 children in foster care.” Ryan will share about their journey of fostering and adopting along with the role the church and community can play.
This service launches the year-end giving campaign for FFM that continues through the end of December. Considering all the outreach events FMM holds, Bouquet expressed that the awareness, recruitment and giving generated from this event, “makes the biggest impact of the whole year. It enables us to continue to serve churches, communities and most importantly vulnerable children and families.”
A Meet & Greet with Ryan North precede the service from 6-6:30pm. The is a great time to connect with our speaker as well as families who foster on the front lines from our 5 counties Ashland, Knox, Richland, Medina and Wayne. The service will be live streamed on Facebook. FFM highly encourages churches and families out of the area to host watch parties for those cannot attend in person.
Fostering Family Ministries has served Ashland County and neighboring counties during the past five years. Their model of engagement and service contributed to the increase of foster families in Ashland County by seven-fold. They continue to grow in their reach and effort to diminish the foster care crisis and meet the needs of vulnerable children. Their newest initiative is integrating trauma-informed practices in the Juvenile and Probate court in Ashland County. The end of the year giving campaign will expand the work within the local courts.
Located in north-central Ohio, Fostering Family Ministry exists to motivate, organize, and equip church partners to serve the needs of foster children in their community. Founded in Ashland County in 2016, FFM has grown to include Richland, Knox, Median and Wayne Counties as well as over 30 partner churches and numerous community partners. FFM seeks to continue to cultivate foster care ministry within churches until there are more than enough loving families and care teams for vulnerable children in foster care. For more information about FFM, visit www.fosteringfamilyministries.org.