Looking Back on 2022
By Chloe Fuller and Milan Lay
At Kidsave, we’re excited to begin a new year because each year brings more opportunities to help older kids in foster care find loving forever families. For over 23 years, our innovative programs have helped older kids form meaningful connections and build lasting bonds with mentors, hosts, and adoptive families here in the U.S. and abroad. Thanks to our dedicated staff and the unwavering support of our community, we were able to help make the dream of a forever family come true for many older kids in care in 2022.
Weekend Miracles
In Houston and LA, Kidsave’s Weekend Miracles program helps older kids in foster care connect with adults in their local community through monthly Connection Events. While not every child in our Weekend Miracles program is open to adoption, we do everything we can to meet the kids where they are and help create the connection they are looking for, whether that is with a mentor, host, or a forever family.
In LA, we served 104 kids in 2022 with 78 kids actively participating—meaning they attended at least three events throughout the year. Of those 78, 31 have found a forever family and 7 have been matched for hosting.
In Houston – our newest Weekend Miracles location – we served 56 kids in 2022 with 38 actively participating. Of those 38, 18 have been connected with a host or family, and we had our very first Texas adoption. Single father Larry adopted Charles after the two connected through our Weekend Miracles Houston events. You can read their story on our website.
There are many wonderful kids in our Weekend Miracles program in need of hosts or adoptive families. These older kids in foster care are growing up without the stability and love that all kids need to thrive. If you’re interested in adopting or hosting an older kid, please contact us. We’re happy to answer any questions and help you get started. Email us at weekendmiracles@kidsave.org to learn more.
Summer/Winter Miracles
In just a few months, we’ll be welcoming our 2023 group of Summer Miracles kids! Kidsave’s Summer Miracles program brings older orphans from Colombia—who have little to no chance of adoption in their own country because of their age—to the U.S. for 5 weeks. During that time, they will stay with host families, connect with potential adoptive families, and make lifelong memories.
This past year was a remarkable one for the kids in our Summer Miracles program. We served 63 children, 49 of whom were good candidates for the program. Through our summer and winter hosting program, we brought them to the U.S. for 3-5 weeks of fun and connections. The kids had so many wonderful experiences. They went to amusement parks and holiday parties, some went to the beach for the very first time while others experienced their first snowfall, and so much more. And for many, it was their first time experiencing what life with a loving forever family could be like.
As with each year, the goodbyes at the end of the hosting period were hard for everyone, but many of those goodbyes were not forever: of the 49 who wished to find a forever family, 48 are now in an adoptive match!
We are still looking for hosts for our 2023 Summer Miracles program! Whether you want to host as an advocate or a potential adoptive family, you can help change the life of an older child from Colombia this summer! Visit the booking calendar to speak with Assistant Manager Madeline to learn more or email us at summermiracles@kidsave.org.
Sierra Leone
Since 2010, Kidsave has worked in Sierra Leone, getting more than 1,200 kids out of orphanages and into vetted families — nearly always with extended family and kin. In 2022, with our partner the Foundation for Integrated Development (FID) led by Ibrahim Kawa, we directly helped more than 117 kids move in with families.
This was an incredible feat as Kidsave and FID were faced with a big challenge when the Love One Another Orphanage announced on March 11 that it would have to close in one month, leaving the fate of 170 children up in the air.
Ibrahim and his team learned that arrangements were being made for the younger children, but that 62 of the children were older, making them harder to place. They had no prospects, and because many were close to turning eighteen, they had little hope of finding a home. Fortunately for them, Kidsave specializes in helping older, harder-to-place children find safe, loving families. Ibrahim not only agreed to find families for these children, but he also agreed to meet the deadline before the orphanage closed.
Kidsave flew into action, and Ibrahim and his small team searched for living relatives for 28 of the children who had originally come from the Bo and Pujehun Districts. Conversations with the children had led Ibrahim to believe many of them had kin there, and thankfully, this was true. All 28 of the children from Bo and Pujehun were reunified with relatives and kin. The remaining 34 were introduced to new families who, with time, got to know them and ultimately became their adoptive families!
In addition to the kids from Love One Another orphanage, Kidsave conducted family-tracing and case-mining for 50 additional older orphans who believed they had living relatives who could raise them. As a result, 117 children were placed with kin or host families in 2022.
Learn more about our work in Sierra Leone here.
Ukraine
Kidsave began working in Ukraine in 2016 as part of a movement to reform Ukraine's child welfare system. Creating two programs in Ukraine, we began helping these children find forever families or gain successful, independent living through our Mentoring and Training programs. From 2016-2021, our programs were highly successful, helping over 800 children connect with supportive mentors and 117 kids to find forever families. And plans were underway to expand our programs to six more regions when the invasion began.
Like millions of others, our world changed on February 24, 2022. When Russia invaded Ukraine, we knew we had to act to get the orphans and children to safety. Under the leadership of Pavlo Shulha, our team began evacuating orphanages and families from Mykolaiv and Kherson to safety in western Ukraine.
With a dedicated team of 3 Kidsave leaders and over 300 volunteers, we have rescued over 30,000 people and provided 1,000 tons of much-needed humanitarian aid. Our team has come to be known as the Angels of Hope as they are one of the only groups still traveling into active combat zones to rescue people and provide aid.
During this time, our team has worked diligently to ensure our core programs continue in Ukraine. Our Corporate Mentoring program, Pathways to Success, continues to provide mentorship and career-readiness training to teens exiting or soon-to-exit institutional care. During this challenging time, our team is also providing the youth in our program with trauma therapy and resources to help them cope with the effects of this devastating war. We plan to expand these efforts with the development of our Kidsave Miracles Center.
The Kidsave Miracles Center will be a safe place where Ukrainian youth and families can come together to access resources and create connections. For now, during this time of conflict, these buildings will serve as safe houses for those who need refuge. In the future, the center will train child welfare professionals on trauma therapy and Kidsave program models, host connection events where youth can meet potential adoptive families and serve as a space for the teens in our Pathway to Success program to receive job training and develop professional skills.
Kidsave remains committed to the people of Ukraine. We will continue to meet the needs of today while planting the seeds for a better tomorrow. Learn more about our work and the center in Ukraine here.
