They’re making a home for foster children

Isaiah 117 House, a nonprofit that houses children before they enter foster care, wants to build its first North Carolina home.

And it wants to do so in Johnston County.

“Isaiah 117 House is a home with two bedrooms, a full living room, full bathrooms and a full kitchen fully stocked with every piece of junk food that you could think of,” said Randa Gay, who’s coordinating the nonprofit’s expansion into Johnston County. “These are all of the things that a DSS (Department of Social Services) office just isn’t equipped to have.”

And that’s one aim of Isaiah 117 House — to briefly care for children until a DSS office can place them into foster homes. “When kids come to the DSS office, they’re sitting in cubicles on the floor or being held by social workers, while social workers are also trying to do their job,” Gay said. “Isaiah 117 gives the social workers an opportunity to do their job fully without having to also be child care providers. Our home is staffed with volunteers that do the child care.”

Gay and her fellow Johnston County coordinator, Jessica Brown, are both foster parents.

“I’ve been a foster parent for two and a half years,” Gay said. “I have had 13 kids in and out of my home. I know that everything is going quickly, and so I think the house will for sure be useful.”

As foster parents, Gay and Brown realized Johnston County needed something like Isaiah 117 House.

“She and I have both gone to the DSS office and picked up the kids anywhere from 2 a.m. to 8 a.m., which means they’ve spent the night at DSS because placement couldn’t be found,” Gay said.

“There’s very seldom a time when a kid comes into care and gets to go straight to a foster home,” Gay added. “I think a lot of people didn’t understand that before we started talking about it. …  A lot of times, it’s really hard to find placement, especially in Johnston County.”

And that’s because Johnston doesn’t have enough foster homes, Gay explained. “There are 323 kids in DSS care, and there are 30 licensed foster homes in Johnson County,” she said. “And of those 30 homes, only eight … have open beds.”

Isaiah 117 changes the foster care experience for children and foster parents alike, Gay said. “Being able to pick a kid up from a house where they have already had a bath and have a full belly is great,” she said.

But an Isaiah 117 home does more than that. “We have a thing called a giving room,” Gay said. “The kids get to come in and pick out anything they want in there.”

The room has clothing, shoes, toothpaste, anything a child entering foster care might need. “It is to make sure they’re set up, but it’s enough stuff to last a week,” Gay said.

For its move into Johnston County, Isaiah 117 House is holding monthly expansion meetings; they’re at 6:30 p.m. on the fourth Thursday of the month at the Church at Clayton Crossings, 11407 U.S. 70 Business West, Clayton.

“We just had our first meeting last month, and we had 35 people,” Gay said. “That is 35 people who gave up their Thursday to come and figure out how they can serve.”

For the past four years, the national Isaiah 117 House organization has held what it calls a lemonade stand challenge to raise money and awareness.

“You get as many stands as you can around the area, and the main purpose of it is just to get the word out,” Gay said. “We give these little (information) cards to each stand for them to hand out to people. The lemonade is free, but if someone wants to give, they can, or just drink your lemonade and enjoy.”

The nonprofit’s Johnston County lemonade stand challenge will take place this weekend.

“We’re actually currently up to 26 stands in Johnson County for that weekend of July 12 through 14,” Gay said. “We’re pretty active on our Facebook page, and so like the week before, we plan on listing out all of the stands that people have signed up for. That way, if you couldn’t host a stand, maybe you could at least go stop by and see one of the kids that probably worked really hard to get their stands set up.”

For more information, go to the organization’s Facebook page at Isaiah 117 House Johnston Co NC.

The post They’re making a home for foster children first appeared on Restoration NewsMedia .