A group of caring individuals is looking to make foster- and relative-care child placement just a little bit easier for affected families in Marshall County.
The Moses Basket – a nonprofit web-based organization devoted to providing supplies for families opening their homes to children in need of temporary, or sometimes permanent, care – launched online Monday for residents in Marshall and McCracken counties. Users may donate goods or request a basket of items such as clothing, blankets, personal hygiene items, equipment, crib bedding, diapers and more to help ease the transition of placement for both children and families who welcome them. The site, set up much like an online shopping center, will allow families to choose what they need upon notification of a placement; organizers then verify the information with case workers to ensure users are in a legitimate foster- or relative-care situation and deliver items within 48 hours of the request.
Marshall County native Kristen Beck, who founded the organization with her sister Lacey Baker, said she felt that while there were groups that assist children throughout the county, foster- and relative-care families still needed a solid support network.
“Marshall County has 90 children in foster care and 70 children in relative care at any given time,” Beck said. “… What this allows these families to do is, it kind of relieves the burden. … A lot of times these families are only given a day or two, and in some circumstances only a few hours notice. I have spoken with local foster families who, their personal experience, their infant was dropped off with one bottle and two diapers, and that’s it. And they were given a couple hours heads up. It was a very quick placement. It’s overwhelming to say the least.”
Children have always held a place in Beck’s heart, as she and her husband work in health care, and often with children. However, it’s a cause close to home for both Beck and Baker, as their father, Chris Bailey, was adopted at 13 months old.
“When I see kids in those situations, I see my dad as a small child,” Beck said. “It’s hard not to make that personal connection. Fortunately, he was adopted into a wonderful family, and he was given an opportunity. His family took that leap of faith and adopted. For him to be in an orphanage for 13 months, was actually, he was deemed unadoptable. He could have easily ended up in the system. Children his age didn’t get adopted in the ’60s. Everyone wanted babies. Children over the age of 1 … were going to be in the system. So, it’s always been a soft spot for my sister and I, we just didn’t know where to direct our efforts.”
Then Beck, who lives temporarily in Boston as her husband completes his fellowship, began helping with a similar support organization for foster care families in Boston for their equipment needs. The idea took root, and in January, she and Baker began to work on the logistics of starting something similar to western Kentucky. Thus, The Moses Basket was born. The name, just like the organization, is a fitting tribute to their father.
“My dad was a deacon in the church, and he was a very quiet, soft-spoken man,” Beck said. “And in the Bible, Moses asked: ‘Lord, how do you use me? I’m slow of tongue, I can’t talk very well.’ And God responded: ‘I can use anyone.’ So, that’s kind of the meaning behind The Moses Basket. … It’s special, it has meaning to us.”
The sisters contacted the Cabinet for Families and Children in Marshall and McCracken counties to verify that such a network would benefit families in the area, and the response was a definitive “yes.”
Tiffany Carlson, has been working with the Cabinet for Families and Children to open her home to foster children since 2015. As a foster mother, she said it was an entirely worthwhile experience to know her family was helping children when they truly needed it by offering them a loving, stable home.
Still, it was a lengthy and sometimes difficult process. Carlson said there were hours of training and background checks involved in becoming a foster parent. Once approved and able to take children in to the home, foster parents had few resources. While the cabinet assists with a clothing reimbursement for up to $100 for children upon initial placement, children often arrive at the home with absolutely nothing but what they are wearing, she said.
“We had a placement one time that it was three kids, and they literally came with nothing,” Carlson said. “We got them at like 8 p.m., and the next day was school. Well, we didn’t have enough time, by the time you go thorough – because when they bring them to your house, you have to sign all these papers, and then they go over information with you – so by the time all that was done, we didn’t have time to run to Walmart and find them clothes. So they literally had to go to school the next day in the same clothes that they came to our house in, and I felt completely awful about it, but there was just no feasible way around it.”
Filling that need for families is only one part of what Beck and Baker are hoping to accomplish. Helping kids keep some semblance of normalcy and stability in any way was important, she said.
“Our kids in Marshall, we don’t even have resources to keep our children in the system inside of Marshall County,” Beck said. “Not only are these kids being placed into new homes, they’re going to separate counties. They’re not getting to stay in their school systems, they’re not getting to be with their friends. Their entire sense of normal is gone, and that’s really sad. That’s is an area to where we can step up as a community and at least keep some things normal for them.”
Beck said she Baker are starting in just Marshall and McCracken, but hope to eventually expand to be able to serve all of western Kentucky.
The Moses Basket is working to stockpile resources to be able to assist families, focusing on donations until July 1. Those interested in donating to The Moses Basket may visit www.themosesbasket.com for additional information and steps to contribute items or financial contributions, via Paypal. The group also has an Amazon wishlist for those hoping to contribute. Potential donors may also send donations to 849 Old Calvert City Road, Calvert City, KY 42029.
For more information, visit the site, follow The Moses Basket on Facebook or call 270-556-2308.