Raise Me Up with call-to-action on April 2 is an effort by Deschutes Children and Families Commission, Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA), DHS and Casey Family Programs to shed light on the challenges of children in foster care.
Casey Family Programs is the largest national operating foundation whose sole mission is to provide and improve – and ultimately prevent the need for – foster care.
A grassroots effort to bring over 200 community members together to represent the number of children that spent at least one day in foster care last year is scheduled during the noon hour on April 2, the beginning of Child Abuse Prevention month.
As a call-to-action we are asking citizens during their lunch hour to meet in front of the courthouse starting at noon. The Raise Me Up ceremony will start at 12:15 with opening remarks provided by Judge Brady and a foster care youth. The ceremony will conclude at 12:30 with a special flag raising ceremony and citizens joining hands around the courthouse. The flag will fly the month of April to remind our community the challenges foster children face and what people who want to serve can do – fostering or adopting children, volunteering to help or working directly with youth, or raising awareness about foster care.
“As a community it is our fundamental obligation to help children who are in foster care through no fault of their own,” said Pam Fortier, executive director of CASA of Central Oregon. “Raise Me Up” is a call to action for everyone who believes that these vulnerable children deserve the opportunity to grow up happy, healthy and successful. But to truly raise these children up, and reduce the need for foster care in the first place, we need the help of the whole community. Together we can lift up the lives of children in foster care and we think this event will inspire people to do just that.”
Contact Pam Fortier
CASA of Central Oregon
541.389.1618
