Couldn't be prouder to be among the recipients of a grant from Impact 100! The expansion of our seasonal urban agricultural program to a year-round operation will offer life-changing opportunities to the students we serve and allow a substantial increase in the production of fruits and vegetables available in Madisonville and surrounding communities.

"There is a growing chasm between the number of available foster families and the increasing number of children who enter the child welfare system because one or both of their parents are drug addicts," said Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine. "Today I want to issue a call to Ohioans who may be interested in being a foster parent. I ask them to make that leap and open their home to a kid or kids who could use a stable, loving home."

"Sometimes it's not even being kicked out of the home but just when the parents have a negative reaction, it makes the living situation stressful for them," said volunteer Aubrey Sarna.

Every couple of weeks or so, Hamilton County child welfare workers pull out a cot between the desks and file cabinets of their downtown Cincinnati office building and put a child to sleep because they can’t find a suitable family member or an available foster home.

“I really don’t want any other homeless youth to be in my shoes,” Shawn Ingle said. “To be sleeping under a bridge or begging for food.”

The need for foster parents in our community is greater than ever. Fueled by the heroin epidemic, there are now more kids in foster care in Hamilton County than at any time in the past 20 years. The average number of new children coming into the system annually was 786. Last year, the number jumped to 1,163.

"You are sitting out there, excited and relieved at the same time,'' said Laquita Howell, a foster care graduate who is now a mom, a JFS worker, and Lighthouse Board member. "Lean on your mentors, ask for help when you need it." And perhaps most important, she told them to never give up on themselves: "Keep telling yourself: 'I can finish it. I know I can, I know I can.' "