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How to Help
Children in Need

Many children in Michigan living in foster care that need our help...more than 17,000.  These children have been abused or severely neglected and protective services removed them from their homes and placed them into temporary foster families where they receive food, safety, and loving parents. 

National outcomes for these children who age out of foster care without permanency and additional intervention show:  only about 50% will graduate from high school; 20% will become homeless; and 25% will become incarcerated within two years; many turning to a life of crime & drugs to survive.  They become highly vulnerable to traffickers or gangs.

Bethany is called to help these children now!

At a minimum, Bethany can provide Life Skills training.  This helps each child who ages out of foster care without a permanent family with learning basic skills needed to live independently.

At the maximum, Bethany can help heal the child's family so the child can return to loving parents.  Sadly when this is not possible, Bethany can provide a child with the joy of a permanent, loving adoptive family.  Bethany has received local and national recognition for providing timely permanent solutions for children in need of a family.

In fact, just a few months ago, Bethany was identified by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration as one of only 71 National Child Traumatic Stress Centers in the nation.  Bethany's Child Trauma Treatment Center specializes in providing new evidence based treatments to children who have experienced abuse and neglect.  This is an awesome opportunity for Bethany and those who support us to provide treatment that breaks the generational cycle of abuse and neglect-to truly bring healing to children who have suffered abuse!

Because Bethany believes that loving and healthy families create strong communities, we want to be at the forefront of creating and supporting family.  If we do nothing, we allow our communities' most vulnerable children to fall prey to dependency on drugs, crime, gangs, and traffickers.  I am confident this will not happen, because you and I live in a community that believes in a hope-filled future for our children.

To do our best at providing for the needs of abused and neglected children in our community I need your support.  Can you join me with a gift by 5/30/09 to help raise $50,000? 

I’m starting with my personal gift of $1,200.  

With your involvement in this ‘Experience THE JOY’ campaign, we’d like to show our appreciation to you with a small token gift.  We hope that each time you use this gift you are reminded of the support you provided to the most vulnerable children in our community.

  $  100 gift  Bethany pocket calculator
  $  350 gift  Bethany travel mug
  $  750 gift  Bethany baseball cap
  $1,200 gift Bethany men’s cotton polo shirt OR women’s sweater tee

Note: write your gift choice in the comments section after you enter your gift payment information.

It will take more than you & I to achieve this goal!  Please share this information with 5 friends so they can engage and Experience THE JOY too!  It’s so easy to link this webpage to your facebook page, or send the link in an e-mail.

LINK:   http://www.firstgiving.com/bethany4kids

Please call if you’d like to know more, or to pledge & send your gift via check.

T: 616.224.7400

God Bless You
Dona Abbott,
Director, Bethany Grand Rapids