 | | | "This is your chance to 'adopt' a local child this year! The Central Missouri Foster Care and Adoption Association is asking you to support the children we serve by being a part of our $12 for 12 Club. By committing to a $12 monthly gift over 12 months you are making a huge difference in the lives of our local foster, adoptive, and kinship youth and families. Please consider joining the club (p. 9)!" | | | |  | | | | |  | | |  | Volunteer Program Update! | | August brought several volunteer opportunities and a surge of new volunteers for our programs! Below, you can see some pictures of our amazing volunteers helping us out this month. Volunteers from CALO helped with a back-to-school drive at Osage Beach. This was their first event with us and they have since volunteered at 5 other events in the Rolla and Osage Beach areas! Lincoln University in conjunction with United Way brought us a group of excited and fun Freshmen students! They helped with reorganizing several of our storage facilities and rebuilding shelving to prevent any loss of resources due to extreme weather conditions. Staff Retreat volunteers showed up with enthusiasm and a warm welcome for CMFCAA. Their help over the 3 day staff retreat was amazing and essential to the success of the retreat. Whether it be cooking for all 30+ members of our team, or organizing time with the families and kids, they brought smiles and full bellies to everyone! Volunteers at Captain Ron’s helped us to bury over 300 treasure chests for the Annual Treasure Hunt event! They also helped us at the check-in table and handed out tons of winning prizes at the end of the long hot day! CALO volunteers are the best! Volunteers at our Annual Luau delivered in a big way! Helping with decorations, registration, activity facilitation and more, this fantastic group came from all over our service area to make this a special night! | | | | | | | | | | | | Would you, or someone you know, like to join the CMFCAA Team
or become an AmeriCorps VISTA with us? | | | |  | | | Donor Spotlight: Dennis Luebbering | | "Children are a blessing from God. They are precious in his sight. Unfortunately, children have absolutely no say in what happens to them in life because of the choices adults make, whether good or bad. They simply have to “live” with the consequences of unfortunate circumstances that are dealt to them. The Central Missouri Foster Care and Adoption Agency steps in to make sure that kids are placed in nurturing and loving homes. We cringe to think of what might happen to these precious children if it were not for organizations like CMFCAA. The services they provide make all the difference in the world in ensuring these children get the acceptance, nurturing, and love they deserve. CMFCAA advocates for children that would otherwise have no voice. They work tirelessly to not only advocate, but lift up children who have come out of dire circumstances. They have the ability to reach and teach those that we may not otherwise have the opportunity to serve. May God continue to bless the leadership, staff, volunteers, and all who support the Central Missouri Foster Care and Adoption Agency in any capacity!" ~ Dennis Luebbering | |  | Luebbering Insurance Staff | | | | | | | |  | | |  | | |  | Last Year's Winning Design! | | | | | “Missouri Adoption Design” Contest! The “Missouri Adoption Design” contest starts now! The requirements are simple; provide us with a design, drawing and/or slogan that expresses what adoption means to you. The design will be refined by our communications department and be used on a tumbler and/or T-Shirt for staff to purchase just in time for Adoption Awareness Month in November. You will have until the close of business day on September 30, 2021 to submit your creations to Vickie.stoneberger@dss.mo.gov. We look forward to seeing the submissions! An Adoption Design committee will vote to determine the winner who will receive ONE FREE tumbler and ONE FREE T-Shirt!! - The design may contain a slogan, wording, and/or picture.
- Arts ay use any medium to create the design (pen, marker, pencil, paint, or computer program, etc.)
- Please make sure the art is clear, legible, and neat.
- Design must be a size that can fit on a tumbler.
- All artwork MUST be original.
| | | | | | | | | | |  | Direct Services is on a Roll! CMFCAA's Direct Services team has had an incredibly busy month of Odyssey Events and Back to School events! The team was thankful to be able to provide over 300 backpacks of school supplies and three Odyssey events to our children and families. While it was a busy time and a lot of work, the smiles on the kid's faces make it all worthwhile! July brought a special event at Wonderland Camp! This was such a special experience for our families and we hope to provide this again. Many activities were offered including: archery, bungee course, rock wall, swimming, target practice, mini-golf, splash pad, playground, a rope bridge, and a grilled lunch! The end of July and beginning of August brought Back to School events, complete with school supplies, giveaways and ice-cold treats! We provided school supplies to around 400 kiddos! The Direct Services team is so thankful to the other staff and our volunteers for helping us pull off these events so that our families could be better prepared to go back to school this fall. We had another Odyssey event at Jolly Mon Waterpark in the Margaritaville Resort. The children enjoyed games, pizza, and swimming. This was a fun time for all ages! We were so excited to bring Odyssey back to Phelps County on August 13th! We were able to provide a fun evening at the Rolla City Park, complete with swim time. We rented out the Splash Zone for our kiddos to enjoy. So many smiles! We had an amazing group of volunteers to help out with this event and we couldn’t have done it without them! Pictures Below! | | | | | | | | | | | | One Simple Wish "C received a trampoline from One Simple Wish. C was so shocked when we got home to see her trampoline. Thank you so much!” ~ family testimonial CMFCAA partners with One Simple Wish to provide larger requests for children in foster care. Items that may be requested from One Simple Wish are (but are not limited to) indoor and outdoor toys, furniture, concert tickets, laptops, tablets, lessons, musical instruments, swing sets, basketball goals, etc. One Simple Wish requests are not guaranteed to be granted. One Simple Wish is supported by donors who choose the wishes they would like to grant. | | | | | | | | The Trunk Clothing Closet | |  | CMFCAA' Direct Services team is beyond excited to announce that The Trunk Clothing Closet is now open to foster, adoptive, and kinship families! Open hours will be posted on CMFCAA's Facebook page so keep a look out! The Direct Services team has been working diligently to wash, organize, and stock clothing donations at the Trunk Clothing Closet so it will be ready for our foster, adoptive, and kinship families to get what they need. If you have any questions regarding the Trunk, please contact Christal Jones at christal@mofosteradopt.com. Thank you to all who donated and volunteered to make this possible. Also, if you would like to help our staff in the clothing closet with organization and setup, please consider volunteering! We rely on our faithful volunteers to help us manage the process at our clothing closet. Address of The Trunk Clothing Closet: 2701 W. Main St., Jefferson City, MO 65109 | | | |  | Registration is open now for our Halloween Costume Care Packs! | | | | | | | | |  | | | Family Development Department CMFCAA's Family Development Department remains committed to serving our families by offering trainings and support to loving families who are working toward becoming a foster or adoptive family to foster children. Read about some of the recent accomplishments within the FD Department below! "The Family Development team would like to express a sincere appreciation and congratulations to the families who attended and completed their STARS traditional pre-service foster care training, STRONG traditional pre-service foster care training, and our STARS Caregiver training. It was our pleasure to certify 27 new resource parents and 28 new Kinship/Relative Caregivers!! The Central Missouri Foster Care & Adoption Association feels honored to have worked with all of our valuable families. Their strengths are complemented by their desire to love and nurture children who enter foster care. Thank you to all of our July graduates for allowing CMFCAA walk beside you!" ~ Carol Montie, Family Development Supervisor | | | |  | | | | |  | | |  | Community Connections Youth Project® | | The CCYP® Department has been very busy this month! The department was excited to be able to attend the Daniel Memorial Independent Living Conference in Orlando, FL with three CCYP® youth! The group was able to attend workshops during the day to learn about what it means to grow into a successful independent adult. During downtime in the evenings, the group explored some of Orlando's tourist sites including Gatorland, WonderWorks Orlando, and to top it all off, they stayed in the Rosen Centre Hotel and Convention Center which had a stunning view of the city, several restaurants, and a pool! It was the perfect combination of learning and fun! See some pictures from the trip below. This trip was an extra on top of all the work CCYP® Specialists have done throughout the month serving our older youth. Young adults still received the support and resources they needed to grow into adulthood, including but not limited to transportation, college visits, help with housing, and employment opportunities. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |  | Kinship Navigator Department CMFCAA’s Kinship Navigation Department continues to act upon their commitment to improving the lives of children and families. Read below to see what just one Kinship Navigator was able to accomplish in August! "In the month of August, I have started building a relationship with Sky Zone in Columbia, MO to see if they will consider giving a discount to families who are interested in buying a membership. I currently have them down to half price and will be working on solidifying it with an MOU soon. This month, I also helped a family in conjunction with the Family Development Department get licensed to be a foster family (going through about 3 different licensing workers!). I also provided assistance with home set-up for long-term care of their new foster kiddo, as well as helping the caregiver prepare to take her GED test which should be happening in the next month or two." ~Travis Green, KN Specialist | | | | | | | | |  | 30 Days to Family® CMFCAA's 30 Days to Family® team is excited to share that they provided 30 informational packets to the Rolla Chamber of Commerce for new teachers coming into the Rolla Area. CMFCAA is proud to work alongside educators to better the lives of children and families in central Missouri. The 30 Days to Family® Supervisor, Tamara Fish, spent a weekend at a table sharing about CMFCAA programs at the Phelps County Fair, an event with Hope’s Summit, and met with the Congressional Candidate, Jeremy Dennison who donated to the foster kid's Christmas. Tamara also coordinated a volunteer party for the Rolla Public Library and The Friends of the Library. Eric Bowe, Meg Baker, Rhiannon Franklin, Leslie Higgins, Lynn Burnside from CMFCAA and Sheila Roylance and Tania Leigh from The Friends of the Library Board of Directors moved books for the upcoming book sale! Pictures below! | | | | | | | | | CMFCAA's Annual Luau Benefit | |  | | | 2nd Annual Luau Benefit Thank you to all who joined us at the Millbottom for our 3rd Annual End of Summer Luau Benefit!! The event was a success and we are grateful to our community for pulling together for a night filled with laughter and fun. At the Luau, we enjoyed first-rate entertainment by The Cherry Pistols band and Uke 66 while enjoying frozen drinks from the Shrunken Head mobile bar and delicious tacos from Rebel Tacos food truck. To end the night, we got some dessert from Twisted Whip truck and had a hula hoop contest! Throughout the event, there were games such as Heads or Tail, Count the Cork, and a Wine Pull, and everyone who participated helped make the night memorable! By the end of the event, the floor was filled with laughter and dancing! Thank you to our sponsors and volunteers for contributing to the success of our Luau Benefit! See some pictures from the event below! | | | | | | | | | | | | | CMFCAA's 13th Annual Gala & Auction | |  | This year, our theme, “My Missing Piece” illustrates how important our kids are to foster, adoptive and kinship families. The Gala occurs during Adoption Awareness Month this year and our focus is on adoption and the beauty of providing safe homes for abused and neglected children. We will have live music, speakers sharing local stories from adoptive families, and a delicious full meal and drinks. There will also be both live & silent auctions with epic packages and price items! Tickets will be available soon on our website at mofosteradopt.com/gala. All proceeds will go toward CMFCAA as we support foster, adoptive, and kinship children and families in Central Missouri. | | | | | | | Click the link below to see past Family Focus newsletters and learn more about our organization. | |  | | | | | Central Missouri Foster Care & Adoption Association
809 Swifts Hwy. | Jefferson City, Missouri 65109
573-298-0258 | info@mofosteradopt.com | | | | | | | | | | | |
