YATOM Microgrants Recipients
Sara and Shaun, August 2023 - Sara and Shaun welcomed two amazing young boys, ages 4 and 11, into their home in January of 2021 and have loved being a part of their journey ever since. Since welcoming the boys into their homes, they have faced major life changes - reunification was close in September of 2022, but it unfortunately didn’t go well and the boys came back to Sara and Shaun full time. Then, in late 2022, Shaun was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and Sara was laid off from her job. Despite these extreme challenges, the boys never took on any adult burdens - Sara and Shaun maintained a stable home through the love and support of their families and community, ensuring the boys did not have to worry about anything. Thankfully, Shaun has made such an incredible recovery, Sara has a new job, and they are able to love each day with the boys. YATOM was honored to provide a microgrant to help Sara and Shaun send the boys to summer camp, allowing them to experience all of the fun and excitement of busy, active days with their peers!
In Sara's words: "Each boy is so kind, compassionate, smart, athletic, and so much more that we want them to get to experience a summer of camp fun! Some people think of a mitzvah as a good deed due to religious duty. I was raised in a Conservative home with a mitzvah not being a duty, but rather to spread kindness and compassion to the world. We hope to continue ‘paying it forward’ by continuing to foster these boys and others. We also hope that one day we will be the ones able to provide the scholarship or grant to a child who wants to experience as much as possible!"
In Sara's words: "Each boy is so kind, compassionate, smart, athletic, and so much more that we want them to get to experience a summer of camp fun! Some people think of a mitzvah as a good deed due to religious duty. I was raised in a Conservative home with a mitzvah not being a duty, but rather to spread kindness and compassion to the world. We hope to continue ‘paying it forward’ by continuing to foster these boys and others. We also hope that one day we will be the ones able to provide the scholarship or grant to a child who wants to experience as much as possible!"
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Lucas and Kelly, July 2023 - Lucas and Kelly started fostering in 2017 and have fostered eight children ranging from 8 days to 18 years old. They successfully adopted their now 7 year old daughter, L, in 2022 after she came to them as a foster placement in 2020. Most recently, they accepted placement of a newborn baby in March of 2022, who was supposed to be with them for a weekend of respite care... and is still enriching their lives 14 months later!
While fostering, their home and appliances have definitely "taken a beating", resulting in excessive wear and tear, which they have tried to repair repeatedly. YATOM was honored to assist them by providing a grant for a new, properly working dishwasher! |
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Jessica C., July 2023 - Recently divorced, Jessica is now a single mom of 4 children (two under the age of 4), now navigating tremendous child care expenses on her own. One of her children was adopted earlier this year through the foster care system, and requires additional medical support to help correct various health issues. Getting assistance with July's mortgage payment allowed Jessica to remain current while freeing up funds to provide basic essentials like groceries and gas to provide for her family.
From Jessica's own words: "I am a social worker for LA County Child Protective Services... I have dedicated my life to showing up, going the extra mile and advocating on a local and national level for improved services and legislation for foster youth. Beyond that, I am a former foster youth myself and, as of February, I am an adoptive mom to a 3 year old child in foster care - for the next 15 years, I will be sowing seeds and investing in her all that I can so she has more opportunities than I did growing up, setting her up for success when she becomes an adult. I also work hard to ensure all of my children have a drive in them to show up for folks like us. I'll never stop working in this field, paying it forward to other vulnerable children - it's my purpose." |
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Cortney P., June 2023 - Cortney originally reached out to YATOM to learn more about our Family Fellowship program. Since she was already certified, licensed and caring for foster children, we encouraged her to explore our microgrant program.
As a single foster mom to multiple young children with medical needs, Cortney needed a way to transport multiple young kids at once, sharing that it’s often difficult to take the whole gang out on her own, especially since her soon-to-be-adopted foster daughter has difficulty walking long distances. It was our honor to provide Cortney and her family a multi-seat wagon that allows her to keep everyone safe while stockpiling snacks and supplies on their adventures Little Miss P loves going for wagon rides everyday when she gets home from daycare! |
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Cheryl J., May 2023 - Cheryl is a retired, 77 year old foster parent whose foster son was born with a brain malfunction - she does all she can to make sure his needs are met, and give him a little extra when funds allow, such as books, music, a new car seat and doctor-recommended swimming lessons to help his physical well-being. Due to a recent surgery Cheryl required, and helping a family member navigate an illness in late 2022, she fell behind with rent. She has been budgeting and penny-pinching to get caught up, receiving a grant from The Change Reaction allowed her to get fully back on track. She also plans to rebuild her small household savings account in order to help manage emergencies should unexpected illness happen again.
Through our partnership with The Change Reaction, YATOM was honored to help Cheryl become current with her rent. |
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Illia S., April 2023 - Illia S. is a Ukrainian student and is currently living in SJSU housing and doing a summer internship nearby. The university housing is relatively cheap and affordable, but they only allow him to stay until August 6th, at which time everyone has to move out with no exceptions. Illia's internship runs through September, and he needs to find housing until it ends, when he then returns to LA and has a sustainable housing plan. His internship is the only source of income for my family for now - his family's business in Kharkiv was destroyed. Both his mother and grandmother lost their jobs, home, and all physical assets. He says this internship is taking him one step closer to fulfilling his dream - making this world a better place through technology. He's working as a Software Engineering Intern and our startup is creating software to work with huge amounts of data, and its product is already very beneficial for the healthcare system for example.
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Angela R, April 2023 - Angela has been a foster parent to a 5 year old girl for three years now, and is in the process of adopting her to make their family permanent. She has faced several financial hardships along the way, especially during the COVID crisis with employment and income challenges. These hardships caused her to fall behind on both her rent and utility bills. Angela secured new employment teaching at a local Jewish school, and works hard to catch up on her past bills as she creates the financial stability that allows her to help others, adopt her foster daughter and set a new direction forward.
Angela reached out to YATOM, asking for help to make sure she and her foster daughter have the safety of their home and utilities as she gets back on her feet. Thanks to our amazing partnership with The Change Reaction, YATOM was able to provide a grant to help Angela and her foster daughter focus forward on their future together! |
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Jonathan and Michal, April 2023- Jonathan and Michal work hard to raise their 4 children. Between the impact of COVID on Jonathan's law firm, their landlord increasing their monthly rent, and the additional expenses of welcoming two foster children into their home, they found themselves in need of help. Thankfully, they took the brave step of reaching out to YATOM.
Jonathan works diligently to expand his law firm and Michal works two jobs, to provide for their 4 children, all while answering the call to help a local grandmother who could no longer care for her two grandchildren. Their decision to open their home to two vulnerable children in their community came straight from the heart. While it was supposed to be a temporary foster placement of "respite" care, the grandmother was unable to take them back so Jonathan and Michal are now providing long-term care for the two children, ages 9 and 11. As a result of the financial challenges of the last few years and added expenses of two additional children, they found themselves at risk of losing their transportation, which is essential for both of their careers and the overall care of their recently expanded family of 8. Jonathan and Michal reached out to YATOM to see if we can help and, through our partnership with The Change Reaction, we were able to provide the funds they need to maintain their multiple jobs, get their kids to/from school, and know that their transportation is secure! |
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Erika B, April 2023 - Erika has supported her mother's amazing commitment to fostering youth in their community, welcoming over 1000 children into their family home over the last several decades. Even now as an adult, Erika provides transportation, mentoring, homework help and more to the foster children her mom cares for, all while working full time and volunteering with local LA-based organizations to reach even more vulnerable youth in her community. After serious, unexpected medical events put Erika in the hospital in December, she found herself unable to work for several months without the benefits of short term disability to help her maintain her financial stability. Thanks to YATOM and our partnership with The Change Reaction, Erika was awarded a grant to ensure she can focus on her healing without the added stress of falling behind on her bills. She is quickly recovering and eager to return to her active engagement with her foster siblings!
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Brook, Deanna, Will, Jeremy and Naya, July, 2022 - We recently adopted our daughter Naya, born in May, in Florida. Her mother was incarcerated with two other children being adopted by the grandmother. Her mother had a history of drug use and incarceration and was told Naya would enter the foster care system. That was when she reached out to our adoption agency and we were called a few days after Naya was born. Before our sudden invitation to bring Naya into our family, we faced a failed adoption in January. We had been working with a homeless mother for three months before flying out to New Jersey for the birth of her baby. In the end she decided to keep the baby. Because of this we lost much of the money we had saved for the adoption and went into our adoption with Naya needing to borrow money from a friend and max out our credit cards. Naya has been lovingly welcomed into the family by myself, my wife Deanna, and our two sons Will and Jeremy. We are excited to share the abundance of love, community, and connection with Naya. |
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Ariella, Garrett and Jeewoo, May, 2022 - Ariella and Garrett heard about their son, Jeewoo, in October of 2021. Jeewoo was born at 31 weeks premature in Incheon, South Korea. He was a low birthweight at just over 3 lbs when he was born. He had jaundice and was in the incubator at the hospital for 3 weeks. He has had hypothyroidism since he was born. We have no information on his birth father, but we do have information on his birth mother. He has a half sister that was adopted in 2015 domestically in South Korea. We fully support him contacting both his sister and mother one day if that is something that he will wish to pursue.
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Valerie and Yonatan, April 2022 - after spending the summer of 2021 together through an orphan hosting program called Kidsave, Valerie and Yonatan had an undeniable bond. Adoption always felt like a natural option for Valerie, after seeing how her parents took in other children when she was younger. Her parents were kinship foster parents and, in their home, her parents always taught the importance of Tikkun Olam and the importance of helping others. Also, the idea of treating others as you wanted to be treated. Valerie's parents always made a point to explain that it was on us to be the change makers and to always imagine if the roles were reversed with the foster children in our home. Valerie is passing these values on to her son as well - Yonatan is an incredible young man who truly displays the ability to persevere. He is such a positive, happy, caring and playful person to be around - he has been through a lot in his short life, but he is such a determined, incredible and resilient young man. As the adoption finalized in April 2022, Valerie was excited about becoming his mother and ready to start their journey together. |
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SarahChaya and Yehezkel. April 2022 - while experiencing our own fertility journey issues, we decided to get licensed to foster and adopt locally within Texas. We received our license a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving in 2020. By the middle of December, we had been chosen to take placement of a toddler boy who came to live with us in early January of 2021. To say we were excited would be a huge understatement. Within less than 5 weeks, we got another call about a newborn baby boy who needed an emergency home. He came to live with us that same evening in early February. We became parents to 2 under the age of 2 within less than 6 weeks and our household became very busy and filled with happiness and sheer joy, a kind that we had never experienced before!
We were also asked to take placement of a toddler girl that needed a home and she came to live with us for 3 months. By then we had 3 little ones under the age of 3, from 3 different families, all in diapers - amazing and challenging all at the same time! Each case has its own case worker, CASA advocate, guardian ad litem, and usually transport person for visitation. Each professional must visit your home and the child at least once each month, and visitation is weekly. Chaos was mixed with great emotions every day. As of the writing of our story, our 2 boys remain in our lives while we are building relationships with their moms too. This has also been an unexpected blessing of our journey, because oftentimes biological families of foster children do not want to remain in contact with the foster parents. One of the mothers says we are not her son's foster parents, we are his g-dparents. She is now very much like our daughter, so we sort of became grandparents before we became parents! BH"! We are also waiting anxiously to see what H" has planned for the next part of our journey. Our agency contacted us about several children who are available for adoption so who knows which child will come into our lives next! |
