Diakon Adoption & Foster Care receives Wendy’s grant to assist older youths
Mechanicsburg, Pa. (Monday February 1, 2016)
The Dave Thomas Foundation has awarded Diakon Adoption & and Foster Care a $70,000 grant to support efforts to assist older youths in the foster-care system.
“Specifically, the grant funds adoption-recruitment efforts for older youths in the Capital region, with a goal of 10 matches of youths with families and three adoption finalizations during 2016,” says Kathy Roach, executive director of Diakon Adoption & Foster Care.
Diakon Adoption & Foster Care has participated in the Wendy’s Wonderful Kids program since 2007.
In late December, Diakon received a 2012 Wendy’s Wonderful Kids grant of $67,500 from the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.
“We are delighted to be able to continue to participate in this wonderful program,” says Roach. “The program has been described as the heart and soul of the Dave Thomas Foundation. Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s, held to the simple belief that every child deserves a permanent home and loving family.”
The foundation awards grants to selected public and private agencies to hire adoption professionals who implement intensive, child-focused recruitment strategies for children who have been waiting the longest for a permanent family and who, typically, have histories of abandonment, abuse, neglect, and multiple placements. The program focuses on transitioning these children from foster homes, group homes, or residential treatment facilities to permanent homes by searching the children’s inner circle of family and other important individuals and moving outward to the local surrounding community in which they live.
Diakon Adoption & Foster Care has been serving children and youths in need since the early 1970s. The program has offices in Mechanicsburg, York, and Topton, Pa.
For further information, please contact:
William Swanger, M.A., APR
Senior Vice President, Corporate Communications
Diakon Lutheran Social Ministries
(717) 795-0308
E-mail: swangerb@diakon.org
