04/02/2022
Calvary's high school students recently participated in a service project benefiting kids their age in foster care.
Our friends at the Orange Country Foster Care Auxiliary maintain a Birthday Corner where local foster parents can find donated gifts for their foster children. Teenagers, however, are chronically overlooked by gift donors, probably because it's hard for adults to know what teenagers would like. Our Fostering Hope team recruited Calvary's high school students to shop for birthday gifts appropriate for teens for the Auxiliary. Who is better equipped to select gifts for teens than teens?
On a recent Saturday morning, seven students led by Austin Tebay and two other adult leaders toured the Auxiliary's thrift store and office. Jamie Gilbert joined the group to explain to the students that most foster kids are removed from their homes because of neglect, often the result of drug addiction. Calvary's students take birthday gifts as a given, but Jamie explained that a birthday gift from foster parents may be the first birthday gift a teen has ever received. In their home of origin, they may have been promised a gift that was never given or their birthday forgotten entirely. Our students had their horizons broadened by hearing something about the backgrounds of foster kids their age.
Then it was off to Target! With funding from the Missions Council, the students selected and purchased 40 birthday gifts for teens - Marvel-themed T-shirts, soccer and basketballs, board games, purses, beauty products, and more - which they then delivered to the Auxiliary. Kathy, the director, expressed deep appreciation for the gifts and for all the other ways Calvary has assisted the Auxiliary. Our students were enthusiastic about the whole experience. Austin reports that, even before they were finished shopping, they asked, "When can we do this again?
