With its ‘One Child Now’ campaign, A Door of Hope proposes the following: “Within Tampa, if one family from each church opened their home to one child in crisis, the need would be eradicated.”
In the Tampa area an average of six to eight children are removed from their home due to abuse, neglect or abandonment. A Door of Hope, a foster care agency founded on biblical principles, is asking the Church to be the solution to this ever-increasing epidemic.
Godly Daniels is the executive director at A Door of Hope and elaborated on the agency’s mission and how James 1:27 applies to the foster care system.
“At A Door of Hope the gospel is our greatest motivation and the reason why we get into the trenches and fight for children and families that are hurting and broken,’ said Daniels. “We believe Jesus Christ loves them and His Church is mandated to love and care for them like He does, while in their distress.”
In the past five years, the organization has recruited and trained more than 350 families, and 144 of those families went on to become foster parents. Currently, the agency has 97 licensed families serving 128 children. Even still, the amount of foster families available is disproportionate to the number of children in need. As the agency looks ahead to the next five years, its goal is to increase the number of foster families to 300.
While not everyone is called to foster children, the Church and community can come alongside these foster families and support them. Daniels shared the details of an upcoming fundraising event called A Night of Hope. The fundraising Gala takes place on Saturday, October 6 at 6 p.m. at Bryan Glazer Family JCC in Tampa.
Daniels said the event would highlight how “the gospel is the catalyst for real change and that change takes place from the inside out, and we see God moving in our hearts throughout the system.”
For info on how to support the mission or inquire about foster care training, visit www.adoorofhope.com. To learn more about A Door of Hope’s ‘One Child Now’ campaign, www.onechildnow.com. Further detail on A Night of Hope can be found at www.anightofhopegala.com/.
