iFoster Community 2020 Year In Review
by iFoster |
January 5, 2021
Thank you iFoster Community for rising to 2020’s challenges! Together – team, partners, funders, and members – we helped our youth succeed through these dark times.
- Serving 58,530 transition-age foster youth, caregivers, and agencies from all 50 states through the iFoster Resource portal providing over $125 Million in resources.
- Peer mentoring over 16,000 CA transition-age foster youth with iFoster TAY AmeriCorps peer mentors supporting and providing resources to foster youth across 54 CA counties.
- Enabling distance learning for 19,360 K-12 & college foster youth students by providing 23,877 laptops, tablets, and hotspots. Renegotiating legislation and contracts to provide a 15x increase in high speed/hotspot data to ensure more than sufficient data capacity.
- Partnering to provide over 5,000 free tutors to K-12 foster youth for 1:1 tutoring as long as they need, when they need it.
- Funding emergency aid for 960 transition-age foster youth to cover rent, emergency shelters, food, transportation, clothing, etc. to keep them safe, persisting in school and gaining jobs.
- Providing over 800 hours of free life coaching to foster youth experiencing difficulties with isolation, job loss, financial crisis, and emotional and mental health crises.
- Enabling 62 foster foster youth to gain employment with a new virtual version of the iFoster Jobs Program, recognized by Administration for Children and Families as a promising practice for foster youth employment.
- Having fun with over 800 foster youth and their caregivers with the inaugural GREAT iFoster Bake Off, building hundreds of Pop-Tart holiday houses in the Zoom event of the year!
This year, more than ever, it took a village to support our kids. We are blessed to be able to work with over 900 agency partners, incredible funders, and thousands of dedicated colleagues every day to ensure that all of our kids – both in care and aged out – get the resources and opportunities they need to succeed. Thank you!
Wishing you all the best and looking forward to what we accomplish together in 2021!
#iamifoster