Category: foster care

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Tiffany Haddish Helps Out Foster with Donated Suitcases

The past year has made me think a lot about giving back to my community, and I’ve been looking for new ways to help people out.

That’s why I was so verklempt to read about one celebrity who has been giving back in a deeply personal and meaningful way.

Grammy-winning comedienne Tiffany Haddish and her four younger siblings went into the American foster care system when she was just 12 years old.

As she told David Letterman:

“You’re dropped in these strangers’ houses, you don’t know these people, these people don’t know you, you don’t know if they’re gonna hurt you, if they’re gonna be kind, you don’t have a clue what’s going on.”

What always stuck with Haddish about making the foster care experience extra difficult was that when children are moved from home to home, they’re handed a garbage back to pack up their things.

It made her feel like garbage.

And then one day, in a small way, someone made a huge difference in her life.

Instead of a garbage bag, they gave her a suitcase. Now Haddish felt:

“Like I had a purpose, like I’m a person like I’m not garbage, I got this — it’s mine, and my things are in here, and wherever I go I can take this with me and I’m going somewhere.”

For years, Haddish had encouraged her fans to bring suitcases to her shows and donate them to foster children, including the Beech Brooke organization of Cleveland, Ohio:

And The Villages of Indiana:

These are just some of the over 95 suitcases donated from last week’s Tiffany Haddish show in Bloomington. The…

Posted by The Villages – Foster Care, Adoption, & Family Services on Friday, October 4, 2019

After watching her interview with Letterman on Netflix last fall, a foster care specialist from from Lake County, Indiana, Shanell Manuel took note:

Haddish’s point about garbage bags struck a chord with Manuel, who had herself been bothered by the same thing.

As Distractify reported:

“She reached out to Tiffany’s She Ready Foundation, whose mission is to “protect, provide resources, and ensure normalcy for foster children.”

Once again, Haddish came through with 100 suitcases for Indiana foster kids last Christmas.

And her work has inspired other organizations to do suitcase drives in their communities too.

But she’s not finished yet.

As Black Enterprise recently reported, Haddish’s She Ready Foundation has got a new project to help kids who age out of the foster system start careers in the entertainment industry:

The program is supported by Tiffany Haddish’s She Ready Foundation and Ready To Succeed, a Career Accelerator for foster youth, who will provide training, mentorship and ongoing support.”

It’s truly amazing to see someone so dedicated to helping out such a deserving and under-served demographic.

What do you think about the suitcase challenge? Let us know in the comments!

The post Tiffany Haddish Helps Out Foster with Donated Suitcases appeared first on UberFacts.

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Having Grown Up in Foster Care, This Woman Explains Why Adoption Isn’t the Best Alternative to Abortion

The abortion debate is becoming increasingly intense again, and many anti-abortion activists are in favor of adoption as a more humane alternative to abortion. But a woman who grew up in foster care wants people to know that adoption is not the simple solution that it seems.

Olivia Paige knows exactly how broken the adoption system is in the US because she grew up in it. She posted on Facebook to explain what it’s really like for children in the system.

“Let me start off by reminding you of the 390,000+ children and teens in foster care, 100,000+ of which are waiting to be adopted,” Olivia’s post began. “Around 50,000 are placed up for adoption each year—these abortion bans are sure to make those numbers grow so let me share some statistics with you.”

Posted by Olivia Paige on Sunday, April 28, 2019

“20% of teens who age out of foster care become instantly homeless, with no support system in place.
There is less than a 3% chance that any of these kids will obtain any sort of degree.
25% suffer from PTSD.
1 out of every 2 kids will develop substance abuse problems.
Adopted children make up only 2% of children under 18.”

Then Olivia went on to share her own experience as one of the “lucky ones” who made it out alright. She attached a photo of a flyer that was handed out to prospective adopters when she was a teenager. She was never adopted, she says.

I debated posting this for a while, I’ve decided to do it because not many people know what it’s really like as a child…

Posted by Olivia Paige on Tuesday, May 28, 2019

“I spent a decade in foster care, bouncing between ‘homes’ with strangers in places I’d never known before. With no warning, a social worker would show up and tell me I’d have to pack my things (the very few I had) and leave whatever strange place I’d kept myself from getting too comfortable in at the drop of a hat,” she wrote. “I had no say in the matter.”

In two of her foster homes, Olivia was physically and sexually abused. Many times, she watched her foster parents take their money from the state and spend it on themselves instead of her. Sometimes, there were no homes for Olivia to stay in, so she had to sleep in a cubicle at Family Services.

“I spent ten years feeling unworthy of love, unwanted and waiting for the next bad thing to happen to me,” Olivia wrote.

it’s Octoberween and this is one of my favorite self portraits so ~ figured it was fitting 🙂

Posted by Olivia Paige on Thursday, October 4, 2018

Thankfully, Olivia aged out of the system at 16, and she’s been doing well ever since. But there are tens of thousands of children just like her currently going through the same thing.

“I dare you to say ‘adoption is always an option’ to any of the several tens of thousands who have been waiting patiently for years for someone to come along and give them the chance to define the word ‘family’.”

Olivia wrote that, while she doesn’t wish she’d been aborted or that she were dead, she does believe that abortion is preferable to forcing so many kids to go through this.

missing doing shoots with Rich Adams Jr.!

Posted by Olivia Paige on Tuesday, November 27, 2018

“A life is not saved just by letting it be born,” she said.

“Kids should be in homes with families that truly love them. If you’re so adamant about kids being born—go through the process and adopt some yourself.”

The post Having Grown Up in Foster Care, This Woman Explains Why Adoption Isn’t the Best Alternative to Abortion appeared first on UberFacts.