A Time of Celebration





The beginnings of Dreams...



One of the things I enjoy about what I do is getting the opportunity to celebrate with the group homes we are connected with.  We have five homes who were chosen as the top five for the Dream Board Competition at our recent Tools 4 Success Back to School Party. The winners receive a pizza pater at Peter Piper Pizza for pizza and games.

On Sept 14th, Tammie and Gary had the pleasure on celebrating with one of the winning homes.  They all had a great time.  Even better, they were able to join in a birthday celebration for one of the girls.  I love it when things like this happen!
This past week I had that opportunity to host a teen girls home .  We were joined by a group of volunteers from Family Life Church, who are getting connected with this girls home. So the ladies had an opportunity to meet the girls and the house manager had the opportunity to meet the ladies.  Everyone had a great time.  One of the girls turned to me and said "Thank you for getting us out of the house.  This is so much fun and a lot better than what we would have been doing, nothing"

OCJ Kids has two more parties scheduled and one we are waiting to schedule.  Can't wait!

How do you celebrate with those you love?  What are somethings you celebrate?  I would love to hear the small and big events that you celebrate with the ones you love.

CPS Squeeze

I remember when the stats for the number of children in foster care were in the 9,000's for Arizona.  I thought that was bad, then Gary, OCJ Kids' President and Founder, comes into the office and informs us that there over 10,000 children in the foster care system in Arizona.  Well, just today I read an article on AZCentral.com and the new number of children in Foster Care as of June, 2011 there are now 11,082 children in foster care.  
The article "CPS Squeeze: More Children in need, Fewer Foster Homes" help to reinforce what we at OCJ Kids have been seeing in the agencies we are connected with.  Group homes filled to capacity and in some cases over full, babies coming into the homes at two days old, and all this leads to tension in the homes.

Just this past week, I had the wonderful opportunity to introduce a new volunteer to a teen girls home out in Tempe.  It was very exciting!!  We played Uno and got to know each other, then in the middle of the game, one of the young ladies had enough of the personality of another young lady in the house.  What happened next could have turned out worse if it wasn't for the staff on duty at the time, she handled the situation beautifully.  There was almost a fight at the house that night.  I think one of the great things that happened that night was that the volunteer was not scared away.  She is going back to continue working with these girls.  To help build up their self esteem and develop life skills as they prepare to enter the real world. 

The need is great right now here in Arizona for foster parents and volunteers to work with these young people, who are obviously hurting on the inside to be so angry on the outside. 

Will you be one who helps these young people?  Will you help OCJ Kids reach out to this lost and hurting generation that are being passed around from place to place?

These kids NEED YOU!  Check out our website http://www.ocjkids.org/ to find out how you can help.

Take action today!  Get involved!