The Code of Federal Regulations defines "foster care" as the "24-hour substitute care for children outside their own homes." Some common foster care environments include relative foster homes, non-relative foster care homes, pre-adoptive homes, and group homes.
No matter the setting, foster children, families and organization needs all the help they can get as resources are often limited. Help comes in all forms - monetary donations, item donations, volunteering, and more.
We've compiled a list of websites in every state across the U.S. that exist to help foster children and foster families. If you know of anymore organizations to add to the list, please share them in the comments. Together we can make a difference!
1. Alabama
Kids to Love
- They founded Camp Hope Alabama that reunites siblings who are in foster care but separated, and gives foster children in families a weekend to be able to feel 'at home' together.
- They sponsor Backpack Drives so local foster children can have supplies, but more-support-in school.
- They could use volunteers for all their programs, especially their camp and Ktech programs
- BigHouse Foundation has a Clothes Closet for foster families they can access monthly. They seek gently used clothes all year to keep the closet stocked.
- They have birthday clubs that foster children can get a gift from during their birthday, and local groups put together bags of décor, cake mixes, etc to celebrate the child's birthday
- They sponsor Santa's workshop where volunteers shop for and wrap presents and beach retreats where people can sponsor a child at the beach for a weekend.
2. Alaska
Facing Foster Care in Alaska (FFCA)
- Leadership training and laptop donations as well as child welfare staff education.
- You can donate, advocate and teach life skills classes like hygiene, banking and credit, computer skills or personal development
3. Arizona
Arizona Helping Hands
- You can sponsor a drive for gift cards and books for the Birthday clubs. http://www.azhelpinghands.org/sponsor-collection-drive/
- You can also sponsor drives to fill backpacks or buy supplies/backpacks http://www.azhelpinghands.org/help-back-school/
- Donate or collect toiletries for Dream Kits http://www.azhelpinghands.org/dreamkits/
- Pays for kids to go to summer camp. http://sunshineangelsaz.org/programs/summer-camp/
- Offers scholarships for foster children. http://sunshineangelsaz.org/programs/angel-scholarships/
- Offers new tennis shoes and basketball camp for kids http://sunshineangelsaz.org/programs/happy-feet/
- Ton of other stuff like birthday clubs, backpacks, clothes and tutoring
4. Arkansas
Project Zero
- Monthly events for Arkansas foster children: Pamper Day, Salon Day, Money Management, Dances, Sports games, Dinner and a movie, etc.
- Programs like Art Therapy, Nutrition Education and Summer camps at this huge facility that helps abused foster children heal http://nwacs.org/about/programs/
- Always looking for volunteers http://nwacs.org/volunteer/
5. California
Happy Trails For Kids:
- To enrich lives of California foster youth with outdoor adventures (camps), mentoring and preparation for life after foster exit
- Need $$, volunteers and mentors http://www.happytrailsforkids.org/get-involed/
- Teen Reach Adventure camps for at risk youth in foster care in Ventura, CA https://www.teenreach.org/t-r-a-c-camps
- Sponsorship, volunteers
6. Colorado
KidsCrossing
- Holiday Drive people can donate toys to
- Volunteer with events/respite
- Donate $$ to Maria's Fund, which helps medically fragile foster children
- Drives for underclothes and shoes for foster children
- $$ donations
- Clothing donations: http://www.clothestokidsdenver.org/getinvolved/
7. Connecticut
Department of Children and Families
- Summer camp that reunites siblings in foster care
- Donations accepted
8. Delaware
Kind To Kids
- Blue Duffel Bag Program with toiletries and essentials (donations accepted)
- Mentoring and life skills programs and volunteer opportunities
- Give foster kids life experiences like games, theme parks, etc.
- Current and former foster children get life-skills, mentoring, advocacy and education assistance
- Need money and mentors
9. Florida
Foster Closet
- Provides Foster children and their foster families clothing items, mentor foster families
- Can donate money, clothing items or time
- Advocacy, Education and resources for foster children (clothing, toiletries, etc)
- Accept, time, talent, money for donations
10. Georgia
Foster Cares
- Free clothing
- Free Infant Equipment
- Free developmental toys for young children
- Need volunteers, donations of items, $$ and things they can sell to raise funds
11. Hawaii
Hawaii International Child
- Hawaii International Child (HIC) is committed to children who are urgently in need of families including teens in foster care.
- Services include helping prospective parents find their chosen children including home study services, support for those who are pregnant and considering the option of adoption, embryo placement programs and counselling.
- Itao offers support for those who care for children and youth affected by foster care.
12. Idaho
Idaho Department of Health and Welfare
- Provides resources for foster, adoptive and relative caregivers that open their heart and their home to over 2800 children in out-of-home placement in Idaho each year.
13. Illinois
Illinois Department of Children & Family Services
- Provides resources for current foster parents including a link to the virtual training centerhttps://www.dcfstraining.org/vtc/home/home.action
- Children's Home + Aid is a leading child and family service agency in Illinois. This organization provides the following services/links for foster care Become a Foster Parent, Adult Connections, Excellence Academy, Relative Foster Care, Sibling Connections, Specialized Foster Care, Therapeutic Foster Care, Traditional Foster Care
14. Indiana
The Villages of Indiana
- The Villages, Indiana's largest not-for-profit child and family services agency, serves over 3,000 children and their families each day. Their vision is that every child will flourish in a healthy, nurturing, self-sufficient family.
15. Iowa
Iowa Foster Care and Adoptive Parents Association
- IFAPA - A Resource for Iowa's Foster, Adoptive & Kinship Families
- The Iowa Foster and Adoptive Parents Association has been serving as a resource to foster, adoptive and kinship families in Iowa for nearly 45 years. IFAPA is a non-profit organization that empowers, supports and advocates for these families. This site includes links and resources for foster parent families including the Friends of Children in Foster Care Program
- The Friends of Children in Foster Care Program helps children in foster care receive funds in order to participate in extra-curricular activities, such as obtaining music instruments, senior pictures or attending prom, swimming lessons or summer camp.
16. Kansas
Together We Rise
- A non-profit organization that works with community partners to connect foster youth with resources and educates volunteers.
- Their foundation has helped provide thousands of kids across the country with new bicycles, college supplies, and suitcases to replace the trash bags many use to carry their belongings.
- This is in many states
- CASA volunteers are judge-appointed. They advocate for the best interests of abused and neglected children in court and other settings. Their role includes gathering documents and records, appearing in court, explain what's happening to the children, connect organizations and people who are in the children's lives, help families ad children access services, monitor case plans, and keep the court informed on a child's situation.
17. Kentucky
KVC Kentucky
- Donate school supplies, holiday gifts, household items
- Donate clothing, backpacks, toiletry items, furniture, toys, books, CDs, stuffed animals
18. Louisiana
Brave Heart Children
- Donate money to help children in foster care.
- Donate money to help children in foster care.
19. Maine
Adoptive and Foster Families of Maine
- This non-profit organization has volunteer opportunities, including in their library and mailing out their monthly newsletter.
- This program gives an opportunity for people 55 years of age and older to help in schools and elsewhere in the community. Foster grandparents can help kids learn to read and provide tutoring, mentor troubled teens and young mothers, care for premature babies or children with disabilities, and help kids who have been abused or neglected.
20. Maryland
The National Center for Children and Families
- The NCCF offers plenty of opportunities for those who wish to donate time, from mentoring children to sorting supplies and donated goods.
- You can also donate things like school supplies and furniture - which they'll even pick up from you.
- The NCCF offers plenty of opportunities for those who wish to donate time, from mentoring children to sorting supplies and donated goods.
- You can also donate things like school supplies and furniture - which they'll even pick up from you.
21. Massachusetts
Help our Kids, inc:
- Keep track of specific need from specific kids in the system and ask for those needs (i.e. kid wants to play the trumpet, who has one to donate?)
- In addition to other ways of help, they walk you through doing a fundraiser to help kids in the system.
- You can donate specific things like camp, lessons, holiday gifts. Also accept volunteers.
22. Michigan
Cases for Kids MI
- Give suitcases to kids who typically haul their belongings in trash bags.
- They make blankets and help you host a blanket making party. Also Christmas gift drive. You can also volunteer.
23. Minnesota
Children's Law Center of MN
- They provide legal advocacy to foster kids. You can volunteer or donate.
- Help teen foster kids. You can be a buddy family, host an info night at your church or work, do photography or data service for them.
24. Mississippi
Mississippi Families for Kids
- Helps foster care kids find families.
- Helps children with behavioral health issues, esp high needs, such as those in foster care. You can donate time, money, or items.
25. Missouri
Missouri Dept Social Services
- Has a wonderful list of ways to help kids in the system if you can't foster.
- Help kids in St Louis find permanent homes. You can donate time, be a buddy, give clothes, etc.
26. Montana
Hearts & Homes
- Provides supervised visitation services, custody exchange services, foster parent support, coparenting support for divorced parents, parenting education and coaching, and other services focused on reunification.
- Seeking service groups to provide weeding and planting of flower gardens.
- Seeking volunteers for various opportunities.
- Accepting donations of meal coupons and passes to theaters, museums, and sporting events for foster families, as well as outdoor play equipment and office equipment.
- Provides support to foster families.
- Seeking prayer.
- Accepting donations of groceries and home supplies.
- Seeking help with car maintenance, house cleaning, yard work, babysitting, respite, meals, and transportation.
27. Nebraska
Royal Family Kids Camp
- 13 annual camps and 1 ongoing club serves 1,421 foster and adoptive children ages 6-12.
- Seeking volunteer adult camp staff.
- On-site residential/therapy/parent skills training program for families at risk of losing kids to foster care.
- Seeking volunteer mentor families to provide informal coaching/encouragement to clients in reaching their goals.
- Accepting donations of pillows, pillow cases, twin-size bedsheets and bedding, cleaning supplies, NIV Women's Study Bibles, children's movies on DVD, family and children's board games, reliable vehicle.
- Seeking service groups to provide general landscaping, writing letters of encouragement to clients, teaching a life skills class such as cooking or job hunting, and providing care on-site for children while parents receiving services.
- Provides services to youth aging out of foster care, including leadership, financial skills, and other life skills training, transitional housing and health care, and emergency funds as needed.
- Seeking volunteers to teach about budgeting, opening a checking account, reading a lease, negotiating with a car sales rep, setting up utilities, applying for college, interview for a job.
- Seeking local community members to make available rental properties, special deals at car dealerships, help with paying medical bills, doctor recommendations, providing free medical checkups or consultations for uninsured youth, paying for college books or tuition, giving tips on resume writing, interview skills, and good work habits.
28. Nevada
Olive Crest
- Provides emergency and long-term shelter and care for abused, vulnerable, and neglected children with adoption placement and support, educational services, life skills training, mentoring, counseling, and family crisis intervention.
- Accepting donations for immediate needs, depending on location.
- Seeking donations for seasonal items, such as Easter baskets and back-to-school supplies.
- Seeking host families to mentor youth clients.
29. New Hampshire
Royal Family Kid's Camp
- 1 annual camp serves 306 foster and adoptive children ages 6-12.
- Seeking volunteer adult camp staff.
30. New Jersey
Foster and Adoptive Family Services
- Provides support, training, and advocacy to foster and adoptive families.
- Donate to provide summer camp scholarships for foster children.
- Donate toward a $75 grant to 1 child through the Fostering Wishes for Children program to make a wish come true, such as art or music lessons, attending prom, or participating in sports.
- Accepting donations of backpacks given as welcome gifts to children by their foster home.
- Donate toward birthday gifts for foster children.
- Provides services to youth aging out of foster care, including transitional housing and life skills training.
- Seeking treatment parents to expose foster youth to a normal family environment.
- Seeking hosts for fundraising events, such as a garage sale, bake sale, online auction, car wash, or even giving from your spare change jar.
31. New Mexico
New Mexico Friends of Foster Children:
- Through donations provide additional supports for foster children and families such as bicycles, music lessons, tutoring, and enrichment activities.
- Also provides scholarships for youth ages 17-25 who spent more than 6 months in foster care at any point in their lives.
- Provides housing for siblings previously separated in foster care
- Children are raised as a family on a rural farm setting
- Also provides transition services such as job training or college once a child turns 18
- In addition to monetary donations, the organization needs volunteers and has a wish list of needed items http://www.elranchitonm.org/wish-list
32. New York
Together We Rise
- Dedicated to improving the lives of foster children, who often feel forgotten
- Provides suitcases, bicycles, birthday boxes and college supplies
- Special yearly event reunites siblings at Disneyland/Disneyworld
- Arts-based volunteer program provides free art classes and enrichment scholarships
- Teen mentoring and job-preparedness programs help provide skills for young adults as they age out of the system
- Works with at-risk families and teens
- Finds adoptive and foster families for children and teens
- Community center provides academic and recreational support and work readiness programs
- Donate or volunteer http://childrensvillage.org/get-involved/
33. North Carolina
The Hope Center at Pullen
- Connects youth aging out of foster care system with support and resources
- Employment, housing, education, life skills, and mental health assistance
- Donate or volunteer as tutor, mentor, a host home participant or provide transportation assistance
- Adoption agency focused on recruiting homes for African-American children in foster care
- Volunteer or donate funds to support parent preparedness classes, donate books and school supplies
34. North Dakota
Adults Adopting Special Kids
- Provides adoption services to children in foster care and the families who adopt them
- Donation of $10 or more helps purchase a "life book" for a child to tell their story to prospective families
35. Ohio
Fostering Hope:
- Provide vital childhood experiences for children in foster care such as holiday gifts, holiday party, easter baskets, and a birthday balloon bouquet and gift card
- Health and wellness programs such as yoga and gardening program
- Donate, volunteer, or host an event and donate proceeds
- Provides new bikes, helmets and locks to children in foster care
- Also provides Ohio inmate offenders a chance to serve the community through bike assembly
- Donate or volunteer
36. Oklahoma
Citizens Caring for Children
- Provides school supplies and holiday gifts to foster children.
- Seeking volunteers to sort and hang clothes, organize inventory, do mailings, and help children shop for school supplies.
- Accepting donations of clothes, shoes, books, personal hygiene products, stuffed animals, and blankets.
- Provides support to foster families.
- Accepting donations of diapers, clothes, new shoes, sippy cups, swaddling blankets, bibs, pacifiers, new teething rings, bath towels and wash cloths, baby shampoo and lotion, toddler toothbrushes and toothpaste, new infant and toddler toys other than stuffed animals, toddler art supplies, children's books, and parenting books.
- Seeking volunteers to assist in the playroom, to organize the donation closet, to help with fundraising events, to run a donation drive, to become a Halo therapy buddy to a foster child, or to provide in-home babysitting for a foster parent.
37. Oregon
Foster Closet
- Help supply clothing and other needed items to foster children and families
- Donate clothing, baby gear, diapers, formula, new carseats, etc
- Can also donate money and volunteer to work shifts at the closet
- Provides foster children with an annual back-to-school shopping experience through individual and corporate donations
- Youth in foster care can begin the school year with new and like-new clothing, shoes, jackets, and accessories through a temporary pop-up shop
- Volunteer or donate
38. Pennsylvania
Children's Home of York
- Residential foster care program
- Also provides individual, group and family therapy services & foster care and adoption services such reunification or finding permanent placement
- Donate money or items for on-going wish list, such as clothes, luggage, art supplies, toiletries, etc
39. Rhode Island
Foster Forward
- Provides support and resources for foster parents
- Programs for children in foster care includes enrichment fund for art, after school, and sports program participation; independent skills and support for youth transitioning out of foster care; holiday gift campaign; clothing bank
- Donate new and gently used clothing and bedding, financial gift, mentor, volunteer, or participate in one of many annual events
40. South Carolina
Binky Patrol South Carolina
- Hand-Sewn blankies, lovies, and quilts are sent to children in foster care, residential programs and group homes as well as shelters and children's hospitals
- Donate fabric and sewing supplies, pillows, stuffed animals, underwear and socks
- Comprehensive child welfare organization provides assessments, family support, independent living programs and a residential program for girls ages 12-21
- Monetary donations and on-going wish list of needed items
41. South Dakota
Abbott House
- Serves girls ages 7-17 who have endured abuse with on-site counseling/treatment and therapeutic foster homes.
- Seeking volunteer community friends.
- Accepting donations.
- Seeking volunteers to bake/cook with clients, assist teachers with grading papers, providing art or exercise classes, and helping clients with their personal life books.
42. Tennessee
Heart Gallery of Tennessee
- Creates and coordinates community exhibits and an online showcase of foster children available for adoption.
- Seeking volunteer photographers.
- Seeking host locations for a photo shoot.
- Seeking hosts for a community exhibit.
- Provides transitional care for children who've been removed from their home and are awaiting placement for a foster home, as well as support to foster families.
- Accepting donations of diapers, formula, and baby wipes as well as gift cards for foster parents.
- Seeking volunteers to provide care to children awaiting placement in a foster home.
43. Texas
Foster Angels
- Provides immediate assistance to foster children by providing basic needs such as clothing, food, medical expenses, also helps with important childhood experiences such as camp, birthday parties, and enrichment activities
- Donate needed items via Amazon Wishlist
- Food program provides healthy snack bags for children in care of CPS
- Also collects diapers, wipes, coats, carseats, toiletries and baby items
- Funds go toward summer camp, after school enrichment, Christmas gifts
- Temporary residence for youth who have aged out of foster care, offers GED tutoring, job opportunities, life skills training and help with plan for independent living
- assists kinship placement foster families with food, clothing, support groups, referrals to resources
- Monetary donations or donations of material items such as clothing, furniture, baby items, carseats, toiletries
- Volunteers needed
44. Utah
Royal Family Camps
- Camps in Utah that allow foster care children to explore nature, get out in woods, meet friends and be 'normal' kids in summer camp
- Specifically geared for children who have been abused/neglected
- Offer children comfort bags with hygeine and clothing supplies, as they often enter the system with nothing
- You can help by making donation to their wish list.
45. Vermont
Vermont Parks Forever
- Provides free park passes to foster families and their foster children to explore the great outdoors
- Works to raise money to fix and buy bicycles to be given to foster children
46. Virginia
Comfort Cases
- Offer children comfort cases with hygiene and clothing supplies, as well as small stuffed toys and journals to help them in care (also serves DC/Maryland area) You can shop their wish list on Amazon.
- Fundraise to offer birthday bags, holiday gifts, overnight camps, Thanksgiving meals, and 'normal environment' as best they can.
47. Washington
Camp To Belong
- Reunites siblings who have been separated by foster care situations at camps that give them time together in beautiful outdoor settings with people to help them heal and move through life
- Funds opportunities for foster care children to have 'normal' kid things like school sports, summer camps, art and music programs and other extracurricular activities. Provides holiday gifts, and a store called the Wearhouse that provides new and like-new school supplies, books, clothes, toys and other 'child' essentials.
Connects social workers with volunteers who help provide child care to kids entering the foster system, helping to ease the transition.
48. West Virginia
Foster Adventure
- Funds gifts for special days like birthdays or school awards, funds extra curricular activities for foster care children (school sports and such) and assists in mentor matching
49. Wisconsin
Royal Family Kids Camp
- 6 annual camps and 2 ongoing clubs serve 1,702 foster and adoptive children ages 6-12.
- Seeking volunteer adult camp staff.
50. Wyoming
CASA of Laramie County
- Accepting donations of matching sets of pillows, pillow cases, and blankets for the Holly's Pillows program. Learn more at http://www.casalc.org/donations
- Seeking volunteers to become trained advocates of children served.
- 1 annual camp serves 254 foster and adoptive children ages 6-12.
- Seeking volunteer adult camp staff.
