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RCS Fosters Hope
A Corporate Merger for Good – RCS Innovations and Local Businesses “Adopt” 200 Foster Youth
Every month, 100 abused and neglected children enter foster care in Milwaukee County, and RCS generously donated 200 Fostering Hope bags--enough for children entering care for two months! Often, the children enter care with only the items they are wearing or carrying.
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| RCS Employees Jill Myles and Tarra Gundrum with Kids Matter staff members Susan Raines and Lance Jones. |
“It is hard for people to put themselves in the children’s shoes. Sometimes kids are detained at school, sometimes in the middle of the night. They don’t know where they are going to be placed, and they rarely have time to pick up their treasured items from home. It means so much to the kids to know that someone is thinking of them and providing the basics for them, rather than shoving their few belongings in a garbage bag.”
According to Susan Conwell, Executive Director of Kids Matter Inc., the RCS donation is very special:
-- The RCS employee leadership team walks in the children’s shoes. Several members of the leadership team are themselves foster or kinship parents. They have taken in children on an emergency basis, and know what it means to have children arrive at their doors in need. According to team leaders and foster and kinship parents Jill Myles and Tarra Gundrum, “We know that it isn’t possible for everyone to become a foster parent, but we believe that everyone can help a little bit.”
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| Snow might close the Atlanta airport, but it can't stop RCS... |
-- The impact and size of the donation is extraordinary. This team of employee leaders inspired their colleagues and clients to “adopt” two months of children entering foster care. “RCS is a model of what is possible when corporate America reaches out to help children,” says Conwell. RCS inspired Harley-Davidson, National Premium of Pewaukee, New Era Graphics, and Callison LLC, a Seattle-based international design firm, to pitch in and help with the campaign. “This started as a local effort, but quickly grew to include our partners. Jill and Tarra were an inspiration to us all. We never dreamed that our local effort would grow to serve more than 200 foster children,” says Larry LaGuardia, Business Development Manager of RCS.
Under RCS leadership, employees of the firms filled kid-sized duffel bags with handmade blankets, toys, personal hygiene items, hats and mittens for abused and neglected children of all ages. This donation is large enough to help every child entering foster care in Milwaukee County for two months. “This is so much more than teddy bears. Each child will receive all the basics – new toothbrushes, hats and mittens… you can’t imagine how much a toothbrush means to a child who doesn’t have one. And there are teddy bears, too!” says Conwell.