Foster Care Needs in Catawba County
By: Wilhelm Kühner
Tags: Foster Care, Adoption, Genealogy, History, Nonprofit

Foster Care Needs in Catawba County

Over 340 children now in foster care and 30 waiting for adoption

There are currently over 340 children in foster care and more than 30 children waiting for adoption in Catawba County. Foster Care Sunday (May 19, 2019) is an initiative by Family Builders of Catawba County, the foster and adoption unit of Catawba County Social Services, to raise awareness about this pressing need for foster and adoptive families in our county. If you’re local, please consider getting involved or at least help spread the word! Or maybe you can donate some items that these vulnerable children need in our community?

As president of the Hickory Humanist Alliance, I will be collecting items needed locally by Family Builders at our two regular meetings in May, on the 5th and the 19th. If you can’t make one of these meetings to drop off your donations, please leave me a voice mail at 828.705.1829 with the best time and location to pick them up. I’ll call you back to confirm or reschedule if needed. Family Builders is currently in need of new blankets (all ages), new underwear (all sizes), new (or gently used) plastic storage containers, new (or gently used) suitcases, feminine hygiene products (for teenage girls), diapers (all sizes), and wipes. The greatest need right now is for (new or gently used) rolling suitcases. Any excess items not needed by Family Builders will be donated to our local homeless or women’s shelter.

Premieres on HBO May 7, 2019 at 8pm ET (and online May 8).

Of course, this isn’t a new problem or limited to Catawba County (or to North Carolina). In fact, May is Foster Care Awareness month in the United States. And in the early 1920s, Walter Ney Keener (a third cousin twice removed) used his voice as editor of the Durham Morning Herald to ask readers to “remember the orphans” during the National Day of Mourning. In honor of my mom, who was an orphan in Charlotte in the 1930s, I invite you to read Walter’s 1920 and 1922 editorials (below) and help spread the word! You might also consider a donation to the Children’s Home Society of North Carolina. Anything you can do will help these vulnerable children. So please do something!

Click Donate (just above to the right) to give to the Children’s Home Society of N.C. via Facebook.

“Have you made that contribution to the orphans?” — Walter Ney Keener (Nov. 23, 1920)

Ooops…Scroll back up to click Donate.

“If you give to the orphans today you will have double cause for being thankful.” — Walter Ney Keener (Nov. 24, 1921)

“You will only have a truly thankful spirit after you have substantially remembered the orphan children of the state.” — Walter Ney Keener (Nov. 30, 1922)

Note: This post was originally published for Giving Tuesday following our 2018 National Day of Mourning, but it has been re-purposed for Catawba County’s Foster Care Sunday (2019). Megan Burns, at Catawba County Social Services, has also volunteered to come to one of our upcoming Hickory Humanist Alliance meetings or events to discuss this great need for foster parents in the community. We are in the process of planning an event for later in May or early June, and I’ll update this post with details on that when we are ready to announce it.