On behalf of everyone at The New York Foundling,
we wish you and your loved ones a happy and healthy Thanksgiving Holiday!
Your support, commitment and passion allow us to reach 30,000
children, families and individuals each year.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Pictured above (L-R): Michael Zink (Director, Road to Success); Raquel (Student); Jessica Puma (Tutor, Road to Success)
We have a lot to be thankful for as we approach Thanksgiving this week! The Hilton Foundation has renewed and recommitted their support for our Road to Success tutoring program! Road to Success has served 173 students in New York City’s foster care system, logging in over 9,678 hours of tutoring. That’s about 56 hours of one-on-one tutoring for every single student who’s been in the program.
Over the last three years, 38 students in Road to Success graduated from high school. Through the combined efforts of our Road to Success and Educational Advocacy teams, the overall graduation rate for The Foundling’s foster care programs jumped from a five-year average of 34% before Road to Success to 52-55%!
88% of our students who leave foster care while in Road to Success decide to stay in the program. And, in the past two years, 16 students from The Foundling have enrolled in four-year colleges, including:
“Our Road to Success tutors do more than just teach; they also serve as mentors, modeling key social and academic skills and showing our students that academic success is possible for them,” said Michael Zink, Director of The Foundling’s Road to Success Program. “Our students and families deeply value the support that they receive from our tutors; so much so that they overwhelmingly elect to continue the service after they leave foster care.”
Another point of pride is that, unlike other comparable programs, Road to Success makes a concerted effort to serve students with special needs. Over half of the students in Road to Success had IEPs for learning disabilities or emotional challenges, and more than a quarter were in full-time special education. While in the program, our students did things that they never thought would be possible for them:
We are excited to see what we will accomplish together in the next two years! We also want to give a special thanks to The Hilton Foundation for supporting our kids!
The New York Foundling has a long history of placing New York City children into safe, loving and supportive homes. Depending on a child’s unique circumstance, they may be placed into a foster home (this is temporary) or an adoptive home (this is permanent).
As we enter National Adoption Month—held annually each November—we want to take this time to raise awareness on the pressing need to recruit adults who have the ability to open up their heart and home to children in need.
Today we are proud to place a spotlight on Norma and David, a Brooklyn-based couple who opened up their home to a set of twins in 2010 when they were 3 years old. Below is their story.
Norma and David were married 16 years ago and brought into their marriage their own biological children who were teenagers and young adults at the time. For years, Norma had watched television and news segments highlighting children awaiting placement into an adoptive home. Week after week, she would see children who needed stability, love and support—something had to be done.
Norma told David she wanted to open up their home to a child. They decided to start as foster parents and signed up for a training program in the Bronx. After completing the program, Norma and David indicated that they would like to foster children ages 2-6. This was an age group they felt comfortable with for their first placement with The New York Foundling.
A few weeks passed and then the phone call came. Norma explained during an interview, “A woman from The Foundling asked if me and David were available to foster newborn twins who were two weeks old.”;
The answer was a resounding ‘YES!’
Fast forward to 2016, and the twins are now 6 years old (they will turn 7 next month). The twins only know Norma and David as ‘mommy’ and ‘daddy’ and were adopted in June.
When asked about the importance of fostering children and then adopting them into their homes, Norma explained, “there are kids who need more than just a house—they need a home.”
She added, “They’re my kids. The only thing I didn’t do was give birth to them.”
Click here to learn more about The Foundling’s work placing kids into save and loving homes.
The New York Foundling has a long history of placing New York City children into safe, loving and supportive homes. Depending on a child’s unique circumstance, they may be placed into a foster home (this is temporary) or an adoptive home (this is permanent).
As we enter National Adoption Month—held annually each November—we want to take this time to raise awareness on the pressing need to recruit adults who have the ability to open up their heart and home to children in need.
Today we are proud to place a spotlight on Johanny, a Bronx-based mother, who has fostered children in her home for the past 18 years.
In 2011, when Selena was 6 years old, she was placed in Johanny’s home in the Bronx. From that moment on, Johanny instantly knew that she wanted to care for Selena permanently and that her home was equally Selena’s. Johanny explained that she and Selena “are a perfect match and she fell in love with her right away”. Their adoption was finalized earlier this year!
Johanny has three older biological children who have kids the same age as Selena. Johanny is also a foster mother to a 6 year old girl and 3 year old boy.. When the whole family gets together, Johanny cooks amazing meals for the entire household to enjoy. Selena loves to spend time with her siblings and when she grows up, she hopes to be a police officer or a lawyer. Johanny cannot wait to see her accomplish her dreams.
Click here to see Part 1 of our National Adoption Month Series
The New York Foundling has a long history of placing New York City children into safe, loving and supportive homes. Depending on a child’s unique circumstance, they may be placed into a foster home (this is temporary) or an adoptive home (this is permanent).
As we enter National Adoption Month—held annually each November—we want to take this time to raise awareness on the pressing need to recruit adults who have the ability to open up their heart and home to children in need.
Today we are proud to place a spotlight on Gillian and Orlando, a Brooklyn-based couple who opened up their home to a set of twins in 2010 when they were 3 years old. Below is their story.
Gillian and her husband Orlando adopted twin boys in May 2016 after fostering them for nearly six years.
Their journey began in 2010 when the twins were about 3 years old—they were placed in Gillian and Orlando’s home for two-weeks. Gillian and Orlando cared deeply for the twins and kept in touch with The New York Foundling, asking how the twins were doing and if they were being taken care of.
In January 2011, Gillian and Orlando learned that the twins were no longer able to stay with a relative who was watching over them at the time, and the biological mother was unable to care for the kids on her own.
The twins were reunited with Gillian and Orlando within days and have been with them ever since. Now 9 years old and in 4th grade, the boys have taken on many characteristics of their adopted father—they have his mannerisms, style, and even walk like him!
“From the time they came into our lives, we were mommy and daddy. That has never changed,” said Gillian in a phone interview.
To celebrate the adoption, Gillian and Orlando took the boys on a cruise this past summer and everyone had a terrific time!
Click here to learn more about The Foundling’s work placing kids into save and loving homes.
Pictured above: Bethany Lampland (right) and Morgan McCray (left)
Bethany Lampland, The Foundling’s Chief Operating Officer and Morgan McCray, Manager of Business Operations, will be honored at the She’s the First Mentor Breakfast on November 17th in New York City. Bethany and Morgan will receive the “Mentorship Duo of the Year” award for their commitment, passion, effort and dedication to bringing the newly created Adopt a Cause movement to life, which they co-founded with the leadership of She’s the First.
Adopt a Cause encourages businesses that have offices with extra space to temporarily “adopt” smaller nonprofits (organizations with 10 or fewer employees) and share their office space—at virtually no cost—to the “adopted” nonprofit. In fact, The Foundling is currently serving as a “host” organization to She’s the First—you can read more about this work here.
“Our success story is not meant to be an anomaly,” said Tammy Tibbetts, CEO of She’s the First. “We want to share what we’ve done so other nonprofits can reap the same benefits and have the same transformative growth.”
Additional honorees at the November 17 Mentor Breakfast include Marie Forleo (Mentor of the Year) and STF Scholar Elly Kaaya (Mentee of the Year) from Tanzania. The event will include a special performance by Grace Kelly, who will sing the new anthem “She’s the First” live for the first time.
She’s the First provides scholarships to girls in low-income countries, fostering first-generation graduates and cultivating the next generation of leaders through its international leadership development and global citizenship initiatives.
NOTE – THIS IS AN ARCHIVAL POST FROM 2016. THE FOUNDLING DOES NOT CURRENTLY OPERATE THE DIGITAL INCLUSION PROGRAM.
NationSwell created a video about The Foundling’s Digital Inclusion Program.
(Courtesy of Nation Swell)
The Foundling’s Digital Inclusion Program, launched in 2015, provides basic tech education, free laptops and five years of internet service to New York City’s foster youth between the ages of 12 and 19. The Foundling’s Tech Workforce Development Program, for ages 18 and up, selects promising youth from among 15 area foster-care agencies and enrolls them in tech-training programs at Per Scholas, Year Up or General Assembly.
“These youth are very capable,” says Olivia Jones, the tech program coordinator for The New York Foundling. “They just need a chance to prove it.”
NOTE – THIS IS AN ARCHIVAL POST FROM 2016. THE FOUNDLING DOES NOT CURRENTLY OPERATE THE DIGITAL INCLUSION PROGRAM.
NationSwell created a video about The Foundling’s Digital Inclusion Program.
(Courtesy of Nation Swell)
The Foundling’s Digital Inclusion Program, launched in 2015, provides basic tech education, free laptops and five years of internet service to New York City’s foster youth between the ages of 12 and 19. The Foundling’s Tech Workforce Development Program, for ages 18 and up, selects promising youth from among 15 area foster-care agencies and enrolls them in tech-training programs at Per Scholas, Year Up or General Assembly.
“These youth are very capable,” says Olivia Jones, the tech program coordinator for The New York Foundling. “They just need a chance to prove it.”
Conan O’Brien is filming his hit TV show (CONAN) at The Apollo Theater in Harlem this week. The Apollo is located just steps away from one of The New York Foundling’s many locations across New York City. While walking around the neighborhood, Conan met Viviane, a therapist and supervisor for our Strengthening Our Families program.
Viviane caught Conan’s attention with her beautiful voice (watch here!) and suddenly found herself spending the afternoon with Conan shopping for gifts to send back to her family in Burkina Faso in West Africa. She was then invited to appear on Conan’s show which aired on October 31. Conan welcomed Viviane to the stage and shared with the audience (and viewers nationwide) that Viviane works at The New York Foundling! You can watch the clip below:
Strengthening Our Families is a preventive program that started in the Bronx in 2015 and serves about 60 families in the Bronx using an evidence-based approach that involves children, their parents and their caregivers. Services are provided in the home and are intended for children age 5 and under. Therapists work to improve the bond and interaction between the parent and child. Therapists also provide the parent with best practices to keep their home safe and their child healthy!
We would like to wish everyone a HAPPY HALLOWEEN.
Pictured above and below are staff and residents from The New York Foundling’s Individualized Residential Alternative (based in the Bronx). They celebrated Halloween a few days early at the Palisades Mall in Nanuet on October 28.
At our Chelsea location, little ones from our Crisis Nursery had their own parade and “trick or treated” within the building. They collected goodies and cheers from Foundling staff while showcasing their amazing costumes (pictured below)!
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