For the third year in a row, The Vine at Doylestown United Methodist Church fulfilled the school supply lists for our Fellows’ children. We received bags filled with crayons, markers, notebooks, headphones, Lysol wipes and more. The kids are set and ready to go as the first day of school arrives this Monday for nearly all of them!
What’s more, in the last two weeks alone the Vine has also helped us get food for a Fellow on campus with a mostly closed cafeteria and diapers for an ever-growing baby. We could not be more grateful for such an amazing and generous community partner. Thank you!
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What does wellness mean to you?
Tips on wellness might include drinking more water, taking walks,meditating and finding “me” time. While that’s all well and good, such suggestions require a certain luxury and privilege. They require time, if not other resources. How then can a single mother of three, working multiple jobs to stay afloat find an opportunity for increased wellness? What about a teenager in a group home who must request a pass or be accompanied to go on a walk? Calls for better wellness are ineffective at best when individuals can in no way live up to our definition of it. That’s not to say that wellness isn’t important. Everyone should have the chance for self-care, for improved mental and physical health. But for that to happen, we as a society must work to make it more accessible to everyone, without judgment. We must recognize the barriers in place for all individuals and determine how best to eliminate them. We must, in a sense, increase our society’s overall wellness so as to increase the individual’s. Save the Date! The R. J. Leonard Foundation’s annual Heart for Change gala will be October 27, 2022 at Cedarbrook Country Club. We are thrilled to announce that the gala will be held fully in-person this year, as well. We can’t wait to see you - to share more about RJLF, raise money for our Fellows, and enjoy good food, good drinks and good times.
Tickets go on sale soon! Watch your inbox and social media for details. To donate auction items, visit https://H4C.givesmart.com. Somehow, it’s August. Relatively speaking, we are just moments away from back to school, Halloween, the holidays and another year. As we all do, we will soon be remarking on how quickly time flies, how much changes in the blink of an eye. But for youth in foster care, that quickly speeding time can run simultaneously with a life standing still.
For so many of us, reflecting on what has just passed is an opportunity to wax poetic about happy memories, growing children, milestone moments. While youth in foster care may have glimpses of that, they have, in many ways, experienced that time differently. Another summer passing, another school year starting, is often a reminder that they remain in the system. They are not home.They do not have the same privileges as their peers. They are not flying through a “normal” childhood. Remember that as you see opportunities through the remainder of this year to help fill backpacks, grant holiday wishes, and more for young people in foster care. Those small gestures from you may not give youth the “normalcy” they deserve, but it will give them a few more things to look back and smile at when yet another year ends. |
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