The Coalition is so grateful to our donors and volunteers. These generous individuals and organizations help improve the lives of the children we serve by making their time foster care more enjoyable.
Thank you Donors -
St. Louis Athletica has been a terrific friend to the Coalition! The team generously hosted a wonderful event for foster/adoptive kids, where the players went through soccer drills with the kids and had a picnic and autograph signing session with them. St. Louis Athletica also donated 100 tickets to foster/adoptive families to their July 26th soccer game and recognized the Coalition in a pre-game parade. We are very grateful to Maurice Mahone who took lots of terrific photographs of the kids at the event!
Stages St. Louis donated 65 tickets to their Alice in Wonderland performance, making a fabulous theater experience for very lucky foster kids.
Monsanto donated and decorated 100 gorgeous Lifebook albums to give to foster children, along with additional scrapbooking supplies for each child.
What would we do without our great friends at Vantage Credit Union and tw telecom, who donate boxes and boxes of backpacks and school supplies each year to ensure that our kids start the school year on the right foot.
Our girls and teens in foster care have been styling, thanks to wonderful bead jewelry donations from Susan Rabbitt of Ladybug Beads, Purina’s Women in Business group, Carey Hudnut and her group of jewelry making Girl Scouts, Julie Wilberg, Cathy Sherman, and Karen Reese.
Our recruiters occasionally need something for one of the youth they’re trying to connect with an adoptive family. Beth Shelton, Fred Fansin, Monica Castilleja-Henne and Jim Hawthorne provided mattresses for some of our youth and Shannon Hauri and Kelly Rader provided bedroom furniture and bedding.
Thank you to Jeff and Kathi Haller who donated a gas card so an aunt could continue visiting her niece in foster care.
Birthday Buddies donate birthday presents to children in foster care celebrating an upcoming birthday. Many thanks to our superstar Birthday Buddies Melissa Posten and Kimberly McQueen, who both provide birthday presents for one foster child every month!
We appreciate all of the sweet children and adults who have donated birthday presents to the Birthday Buddy program, including Linda Lewis, Charlie Albus, Allison Biggs, Betty Kupke, Ellie Shockley, Tabitha Davisson, Elle Haefner, Lydia Jacobs, Matthew Sato, Heather Wolfe, Caden Hanewinkel, Christopher Horton, Tyler Horton, and Nathan Thomas-Benke.
Bethalto East Elementary School blessed the Birthday Buddy program with $237 earned through a “Hat Day” sponsored at their school.
We are so grateful to professional photographers Sandy Schrock of Artistic View Photography and Barbara Brantley of Brantley Photographics who took gorgeous pictures of some of our youth waiting to be adopted.
Thank You Volunteers -
St. Louis Dream Center continues to be an important friend to the Coalition. They recently threw a carnival for dozens of foster and adopted children, providing volunteers, lunch, prizes, and lots of fun.
Our Foster Friends volunteers have provided childcare at two respite events this summer, so their foster/adoptive parents could enjoy a few hours to themselves. We’re very thankful to Carolyn Buselmeier, Elena Logue, Kelly Kern-Miriani, Stacy Mirkay, Susan Harvey, Sarah Hellin, Jan Otto, Laura Ng, Anna Rhodes, Jamie McCarthy, Linda Meyerhoeffer, Bob Righter, Sarah Hellin, Kelly Rader, Laura Mazzarese, Christie Schaller, Bruce Reed and Dishon Knox for donating their time and enthusiasm to our kiddos.
A big thank you to all of the volunteers who helped make our August Training Extravaganza a big success, including: Colleen Hogan, Bob Righter, Betty Kupke, Carrie Collins, Katie and Eric Werner, Alyse and Scott Johnson, Carrie Mattingly, Nina, Marissa and Zachary Palumbo, Aimee Verhaeg, Keelyn Meisinger, Abbie Carlin, Debra Heimberger, Pat Willison, Linda Lewis and Ted McDonald who helped sort school supplies which were handed out to the kids at the end of the day;
Julie Wilberg and Debbie Appelbaum from Nestle Purina’s Women In Business group who made bead jewelry with the kids;
Alyse Johnson who told stories to the 3-5 year olds; and
Josh and Nicole Mercier, Kelly Miriani, Marty Stammer, Kelli Martin, Jennifer Seely, Linda Meyerhoeffer, and Marcus Creighton who made financial education presentations to the kids.
The KidStore is looking terrific, thanks to help from a number of volunteer groups that sorted clothing donations and put the good-quality, fashionable clothing onto the racks in the store, including Mike McLish and his colleagues at Anheuser-Busch, students with Lutheran Campus Ministry, students from Washington University’s George Warren Brown School of Social Work, members from Washington University’s Alpha Phi Omega, and LaTonya Buggs and youth from Zion Travelers Missionary Baptist Church.
A.J. Rosenberg has been a wonderful help in our office, doing a wide variety of tasks.
We are very grateful to Dannette Meier and Cheryl Latham who has volunteered many hours entering Little Wish referrals into our database.
