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Photo by Jesse Chambers
Seeking to help
Rachael Milner, a volunteer with the Orphan Care Ministry at Shades Mountain Baptist Church, assists a church member seeking to help foster kids during the holidays after morning worship on Sunday, Nov. 18, 2018. Members could sign up to buy Christmas gifts for particular children or could take a backpack to fill with needed items for children just entering the system.
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Photo by Jesse Chambers
Backpack tags
Members at Shades Mountain Baptist Church select tags showing the items needed to fill a backpack for a child entering the Alabama foster care system. The tags were for different genders and age groups. It typically takes about $50 to fill each bag, according to church volunteer Rachael Milner.
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Photo by Jesse Chambers
Making a wish come true
A Shades Mountain Baptist Church member signs up to buy the items on a Christmas wish list for a child in foster care. Members have until Dec. 2, 2018, to bring the items back to the church for distribution.
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Photo by Jesse Chambers
Looking through the lists
An attendee at the Shades Mountain Baptist Church worship service on Nov. 18, 2018, looks through the Christmas wish lists for about 120 kids ages 10-18 in Alabama foster care.
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Photo by Jesse Chambers
The holiday spirit
Rachael Milner, a volunteer with the Orphan Care Ministry at Shades Mountain Baptist Church, discusses the program with church members Jim and Sherri Foyt following the worship service at the church on Sunday, Nov. 18, 2018.
An annual drive to help children in Alabama foster care have a warmer, brighter Christmas season is underway at Shades Mountain Baptist Church.
On Sunday, Nov. 18, following the church’s morning worship service, dozens of members signed up to help in one, or both, of two ways.
Those who wish to help can buy backpacks and fill them with requested items to be distributed by the Alabama Department of Human Resources to kids entering the foster care system.
Members can also select Christmas wish lists from children ranging in age from 10 to 18 who are already in foster care to buy gifts specifically for them.
Rachael Milner, a church member and volunteer coordinator of the Orphan Care Ministry, was waiting in the lobby outside the church sanctuary following morning worship to assist members who wished to take part.
Milner said that the backpack program — now in its fifth year — began when the church was told that some kids go into foster care with nothing but a trash bag to hold their possessions.
“That is so sad to think about,” Milner said. “It just really struck a chord with us.”
“We want [foster children] to know they have so much worth and value,” she said.
And the lists of items for the backpacks do not include solely utilitarian things, such as clothing or toiletry items, according to Milner.
“A lot of these will have something like a stuffed animal that they might be able to keep more permanently,” she said.
The Christmas wish lists are particularly important because, without such a program, many of the kids might not get any gifts at all, according to Milner.
“We feel like a lot of our members have enough that they can give, and we want to challenge them to do that,” she said.
Buying and filling a backpack typically costs a donor about $50, according to Milner.
And donors are challenged to spend about $150 on a child’s Christmas wish list, she said.
Those who buy Christmas gifts — which are to be brought back to the church unwrapped — are also encouraged to write a personal note or card for the recipient.
“Some members will also put in some extra gifts to to make it really personal,” Milner said.
Church member Eli Perez took a mesh bag from a display outside the church sanctuary to fill with gifts for a 15-year-old girl in foster care.
“Me and my wife will shop for her and hopefully give her a good Christmas,” he said. “We’re excited.”
Perez said that, from the time he was a kid, his parents "ingrained” in him the importance of helping needy children during the holidays by taking tags from the Christmas tree angels at the shopping malls.
“I always want to help people wherever I can,” he said. “This is a great opportunity for me to do this.”
Church member Jessica Crocker chose to buy a backpack and fill it with a list of items requested by DHR on one of the plastic tags on a display rack.
The tags allow donors to purchase needed items for boys or girls of different age groups.
Crocker picked a backpack tag for an 18-month-old girl. “I used to work with that age range at a daycare, so it is just something I was really drawn to because I know so many children in that age range,” she said.
She said that Christmas giving has also become “a kind of a tradition” for her and her boyfriend for the last few years.
While they are not married and don’t yet have kids, they “still love children and love babies,” Crocker said.
“Since we are privileged enough to go out and buy things for these kids, we wanted to do that so kids going into foster care will have a little bit of an easier time,” she said.
This is only the second year that the Orphan Care Ministry has done the Christmas wish list program, according to Milner.
And she is hoping for a strong response from members so that none of the 120 kids whose lists were given to Shades Mountain Baptist by DHR will be disappointed.
However, the Orphan Care Ministry — including the backpack program — is not solely about filling material needs for foster kids, according to Milner.
“Because we are church based, we ask that our members pray for these kids and think about them and really ask the Lord to just be with them,” she said. “And we are trying to provide some love for them even before they come into the system.”
Anyone who wishes to help foster children, even if they are not members at Shades Mountain Baptist, can take part in the program.
Backpack tags and Christmas wish lists are available at the church. Donors are asked to bring back the filled backpacks and bags of unwrapped Christmas gifts to the church no later than Dec. 2.
For details, call the church at 822-1670 or go to shades.org.
