Foster Parent Association in Central Florida Needs Larger Meeting Space

This request is from a CGC board member.  Please contact us if you can offer any suggestions!

The foster parent association has asked me to help with their childcare when they have their monthly meetings. I agreed to help but the space that they are using to meet in is really small and the kids were all in a very small room with little to play with. I would love to find some churches who would be willing to donate space so that the foster parents could meet and I could watch the kids for them in a separate area. (Preferably a playground or kid-friendly space) We need a church that is in Seminole county and one that is in East Orange. If any of you have any ideas or contacts that I could ask, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thanks for caring about foster kids and thanks for any help you may be able to give me!

FSMO Seeks Help from Orlando's Faith Based Community to Send Foster Kids to Summer Camp

Family Services of Metro Orlando is seeking help from the faith based community to help send foster kids to summer camp.  CGC asked if this includes church camps and they said, "yes." This is a great opportunity for churches to step in and take a child who may have never have heard about God and let this child spend a week hearing all about Him.

If you belong to a church who is planning to send kids to camp, would you be willing to ask if your church could take a few foster kids? Once we find out if churches are willing to take some kids, we are going to work on finding sponsors for them. Please let us know if you can help. This is the first official request from the state to the faith based community and is a wonderful opportunity to have a Godly impact on a child.

Please let us know what you think. Let us know if your church can help or if you could just give us a contact person at church and we will follow up with asking.

We are under a bit of a time constraint since it will take some time to clear all the paperwork needed for these kids to attend camp. If you have any info, would you please get it to us by Sunday, April 25.

Thank you,
CGC

CGC Update

Hello Everybody,

Hopefully everyone had a happy and safe 4th!

We wanted to update you on what we have been doing at CGC.

A few weeks ago Sheri and I took a trip to Ft. Lauderdale to visit 4Kids of South Florida. They have an amazing ministry going there and it was a wonderfully overwhelming day to see all that God was doing in the lives of kids in South Florida. As we begin to try and make a difference in the lives of children in foster care here in Central Florida we were asking 4Kids for advice on where to start. They recommended that we try and work with Florida Baptist Children's Homes and begin to recruit and train our own foster families. Several days after returning, we learned that 1st Baptist Orlando is already doing just that! They actually have a caseworker from FL Baptist Children's Homes on their property and they are about to begin foster training at the church. They are going to be doing several classes and they will all be taught from a Christian perspective.

Please join with us in trying to get this word out to churches. The state has lost over 50 foster homes so far this year and it would be such a wonderful thing if the churches would be there to step into this need. The contact at First Baptist is Laurie Ingram and her number is 407-514-4394 or laurie.ingram@fbchomes.org

I also want to remind you all of our bi-monthly meeting coming up at Willow Creek on Tuesday night July 21st at 7pm. We would love to have any of you join us!

Looking forward to seeing you!

Debbie Titus
Sheri Bell

CGC/Heart Gallery story in Orlando Woman Newspaper

The January/February issue of Orlando Woman Newspaper has a story about the launching of the partnership between faith-based groups and state social service organizations to find homes for children (p. 42).
http://www.orlandowomannews.com/own_jan-feb_09.pdf