RICHMOND, Va. -- Volunteers and staff gathered in the dining hall of UMFS' Richmond campus Thursday to spread some holiday cheer to the kids served by the non-profit.
"We have over 120 individual wish lists throughout the state for kids in treatment, foster care, our community based programs, and our charterhouse school, as well as our Child and Family Healing Center, which is our residential program," said UMFS volunteer manager Kate Ockerman.
UMFS provides support and housing for about 1,800 children in Virginia's foster care system and those with behavioral health issues.
"There are over 5,000 children in foster care right now. 1,700 of them are waiting for adoptive homes. We are the largest private provider of treatment foster care and what that means is that those the kids that we serve, are ones that have a higher level of need are harder to place," said President and CEO Dr. Nancy Toscano. "So, we provide a special level of attention for those kids and we serve about 150 children right now in treatment foster care, up to 50 in our Child Family Healing Center, and about 100 in our school right here on campus."
Ockerman said this annual gift wrap and decoration tradition is a way to spread cheer to the kids during what can be a difficult time.
"The holidays can be really hard for our kids. A lot of holidays bring up some not so great memories and so our goal is to always make the holidays as joyful as possible," said Ockerman.
The continuation come during a time of transition for the nonprofit as they are in the midst of a campus transformation (including the recent sale of their senior living apartment, as reported by Richmond BizSense, to support that) and rebounding from the impacts of pandemic, including a drop in the number of people applying to be foster families.
"We're starting to see an uptick now and we're hoping that trend continues. Our goal right now is to find 50 families within the next six months who can open their hearts and homes," said Toscano.
She said that they realize that is a big ask, but there are many other ways you can help them out in their mission and more information can be found here.
Do you know about a good news story happening in your community? Click hereto email WTVR.com and the CBS 6 News team.
