Help is on its way to hundreds of foster families in five counties neighboring Tulsa.
Tulsa-based nonprofit Fostering Connections bought a Thomas Built bus for the new Mobile Connections program. They'll stock the bus with clothes, toys, furniture, hygiene products, car seats and other items, then drive them out to give away to foster families in need living in Creek, Okmulgee, Osage, Rogers and Wagoner counties.
Fostering Connections Programs Director Mandy Graham said unlike expecting parents, foster parents may learn they’re getting a child within hours.
"So, if you took all nine months and crammed it into just a few hours of, ‘Here, go get everything this child needs,’ you’re talking hundreds and hundreds of dollars to try and get all of the essentials that these children need, and these families just don’t have that," Graham said.
Nearly 2,700 foster kids in Tulsa’s surrounding areas need basic items the bus will deliver.
The Mobile Connections program builds on the nonprofit’s brick-and-mortar resource center in Tulsa. The bus and related costs are covered by an $80,000 United Way grant.
"We got the innovation grant, but that really only guarantees it for a year. So, if we want to keep the bus going into these outlying counties, we have to have that continued support to keep it going," Graham said.
Fostering Connections has information about how to donate items or cash on its website.
The bus was headed to Okmulgee on Tuesday on its first trip but stalled on the way.
