KidsPeace Foster Care receives a $27,000 grant from the Williamsport Lycoming Community Fund at the First Community Foundation Partnership of Pennsylvania. From left: Brian Bluth, FCFP Board Chair; KidsPeace’s Angelene Delarge, Elizabeth Lunney and Jessie Young; and FCFP President and CEO Jennifer Wilson.
KidsPeace’s foster care operations in Williamsport, PA have received a $27,000 grant from the Williamsport Lycoming Community Fund at the First Community Foundation Partnership of Pennsylvania, to increase community awareness of the need for foster families in the designated service area of its Williamsport office – Lycoming, Tioga, Sullivan, Clinton, Centre, Bradford, and Union counties in north central Pennsylvania.
The grant will allow KidsPeace to implement a digital marketing campaign, targeting potential foster parents who would be willing to accept sibling groups, older youth and youth with moderate to severe mental health needs. The effort is aimed at increasing the placements of youth in those categories in loving, supportive foster homes.
Angelene Delarge, regional manager for KidsPeace’s Pennsylvania foster care services, noted that across Pennsylvania, 15,000 children are placed in foster care — including nearly 500 in the Williamsport office’s designated service area alone. “The pandemic has made it much more challenging to recruit foster families, and especially to recruit those willing to care for siblings and young people facing significant emotional needs,” she said. “This grant will make it possible for us to raise awareness of this situation among people who are more likely to step up and become foster parents in this area.”
With the receipt of the grant funding, Delarge says digital marketing activities are expected to begin in early fall, and she hopes to have the first set of potential foster parents recruited as a result of the campaign receiving their training by the end of 2021.
First Community Foundation Partnership of Pennsylvania works to improve the quality of life in north central Pennsylvania through community leadership, the promotion of philanthropy, the strengthening of nonprofit impact and the perpetual stewardship of charitable assets. FCFP strives to create powerful communities through passionate giving. For more information visit www.FCFPartnership.org.
