Foster Friends is excited to announce it has been selected as the very first grant recipient of The Exponential Power of Women 100 Women of Allen group. The $10,700 grant will support Foster Friends’s ability to provide direct assistance to the foster children of Collin County.

Foster Friends’s flagship program is its Special Needs Request program, wherein the nonprofit provides for the needs of Collin County children in foster care. Social workers who interact directly with the children approach Foster Friends when they notice that a child in foster care is lacking an item or a service that could make a big difference in the child’s life. When a local child in care needs something that a foster parent can’t afford and the government doesn’t provide, Foster Friends steps in to fill the gap. Sometimes, this means providing a child with something as critical as a medical device or desperately-needed academic support. In other instances, it simply gives the child an opportunity to live a more normal childhood while in the midst of an otherwise abnormal situation. Driver’s education, swimming lessons, yearbooks, and Christmas gifts for teens who are overlooked by donors who prefer to shop for younger children, are a few examples of assistance Foster Friends may provide.

Foster Friends board member Susan Etheridge addresses
the 100 Women of Allen at the group’s first giving event.

On any given day, approximately 300 Collin County children live in foster care, or with another substitute caregiver. This fiscal year in Collin County, Child Protective Services has been completing over 200 investigations into allegations of child abuse and neglect per month. Nearly 40 Collin County children in foster care are currently waiting to be adopted.

“We are so grateful that the 100 Women of Allen have chosen to invest in the county’s foster children with their very first gift,” says Foster Friends President, Renee Carlson. “The support will make such a difference in the lives of some of the county’s most vulnerable children.”

EXPOW’s 100 Women of Allen awards grants at events that it holds twice per year. Prior to each event, the organization’s advisory committee preselects 3 local charities to present to its 100 members. On the evening of the event, the membership hears from each of the three finalists, and votes to award one charity with the donations from the evening. Each member brings $100 to the event, combining their donations to create a $10,000 grant for the recipient.