Dear Friend of DCFYI:

Remember your first job interview – you worry about “What should I wear? How do I address the interviewer? What are they going to ask me?” So what do you do? Ask a parent or a sibling, they’ll have the answers (and throw in some love as well!).

Teens in the foster care system often don’t have caring adults to help guide them through common situations like how to pay taxes, what to wear to a job interview, or how to fill out a college application. This is where Family & Youth Initiative (DCFYI) comes in.

DCFYI is the only area organization that works exclusively to help older children at risk of “aging out” of foster care find family. Older children are the least likely to be adopted and the most likely to age out of care without permanent adult connections, yet research shows that having just one caring, committed adult in the life of a child can make all the difference between struggle and success.

DCFYI uses a unique approach, bringing together teens and adults for group activities to have fun and get to know each other, allowing relationships to form naturally and comfortably. This early and active involvement of teens is part of what makes us different from other adoption and mentoring programs.

We invite you to sponsor this year’s Establishing Roots fundraiser, being held October 10, 2018 at historic Eastern Market. Proceeds cover a significant portion of DCFYI’s annual budget, ensuring that more teens in foster care will have adoptive families and other adults who will be in their lives permanently to support and guide them.

As a sponsor, you’ll be demonstrating your commitment to improving the lives of teens in foster care to the hundreds of members of our community. With your support, we can make this year’s event even more successful and allow DCFYI to serve more teens.

All sponsors will receive recognition in written materials, including the event program, and on the DCFYI website. Questions? Please contact Executive Director Susan Punnett by phone or by email. We would be happy to meet with you to tell you more about our work or discuss sponsorship levels. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Gail Amidzich Gail Amidzich, Establishing Roots Co-Chair
Susan Punnett Susan Punnett, Executive Director, DCFYI

Why sponsor?

Because of you, teens in foster care find a new family – both in the larger DCFYI community and with the individual adults who become part of their lives. With your financial support, teens will not remain in foster care until they age out alone.

Sponsoring DCFYI’s Establishing Roots offers an opportunity both to provide direct support for DCFYI’s mission of finding adoptive families for teens in foster care and to show your commitment to community and the next generation.

How will my sponsorship funds be used?

Sponsorship funds help support the ongoing work of Family & Youth Initiative, allowing teens and adults to connect in a safe, supportive space. Teens gain the support of a caring community (what many of them refer to as their “family”) while getting to know adults who could become their mentors or host or adoptive parents. Funds raised through Establishing Roots allow DCFYI to organize events like hikes, birthday parties, bowling, and budgeting workshops – activities other teens (those not in foster care) take for granted.

More than just a contribution, an investment.

Support for Family & Youth Initiative is a generous gift. But it is also a wise investment. Foster teens who are adopted instead of being left to age out and fend for themselves are more likely to get an education, launch a career, and become contributors to the economy and their community. They are less likely to need public support. In fact, a study by the Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative estimates that, on average, we pay $300,000 for each young person who ages out of foster care, due to such social costs as public assistance and incarceration as well as lost wages over that person’s lifetime. They estimate that society pays $8 billion in costs for the children who age out of foster care nationally each year.

Looked at another way: “Every dollar spent helping a family adopt a child from foster care saves three dollars in social benefits. More important, it saves a child.” (Jeff Katz, Washington Post, April 27, 2014)

What makes Family & Youth Initiative unique?

DCFYI creates something that is lacking in the lives of most teens in foster care – a sense of belonging and community.

We get together at least once a month for program events that allow adults and teens to get to know each other while having fun. The DCFYI community wraps support around every teen – attending school performances, celebrating birthdays and graduations, remembering loved ones, and being there through whatever happens in a teen’s life.

We use a unique model that meets the developmental needs of teens, involving them in the process of finding their own adult connections. Only DCFYI allows teens and adults the opportunity to get to know each other before being matched for mentoring or host parenting. Hosting and mentoring matches are made from the relationships that form naturally through the events.

Adults develop relationships with many teens, not just the one with whom they are matched. Those relationships are an important part of the DCFYI “village.”

DCFYI changes lives.

How did DCFYI start?

Before we were Family & Youth Initiative, we were the Kidsave Weekend Miracles program, funded by a five-year Adoption Opportunities grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). At the end of the HHS grant when Kidsave decided to close Weekend Miracles in Washington, DC, we were not willing to walk away from the wonderful teens in the program or the many others also in foster care. We knew we could make a difference in their lives, so we created Family & Youth Initiative in 2010 to keep going and build on what we had begun.

In the ensuing years, we have …

  • Served 69 teens;
  • Matched 32 teens with mentors;
  • Matched 10 teens with host families;
  • Helped 21 teens find permanent (adoptive or legal guardianship) families;
  • Recruited over 150 individuals who became active program volunteers.

Other highlights

  • Received funding from Freddie Mac Foundation, Greater Washington Community Foundation, and other foundations.
  • Press coverage: Huffington Post, Bittersweet Monthly, Stone Soup Films, The New York Times “Motherlode,” and opinion piece in The Washington Post.
  • Honored former DC Mayor (and former foster child) Anthony Williams and NBC4 news anchor and founder and host of Wednesday's Child Barbara Harrison at Establishing Roots fundraisers.
  • Selected by Fair Chance as a partner.
  • Selected for inclusion in the 2015-2016 Catalogue for Philanthropy.

Sponsorship Levels and Benefits

Sheltering Forest
$10,000 or more
  • Recognition during the program
  • Full page ad inside front cover or back page of print program
  • Organization name and logo on thank you board at event
  • Organization logo & website link on DCFYI website
  • Three times weekly social media mention through end of October, including event photos
  • Twenty tickets to reception
Towering Tree
$5,000-$9,999
  • Recognition during the program
  • Full page ad in print program
  • Organization name and logo on thank you board at event
  • Organization logo & website link on DCFYI website
  • Twice weekly social media mention through end of October, including event photos
  • Fifteen tickets to reception
Sustaining Stream
$2,500-$4,999
  • Half page ad in print program
  • Name on DCFYI website; if organization, will include logo & link to website
  • Organization name and logo on thank you board at event
  • Weekly social media mentions
  • Ten tickets to reception
Supportive Branch
$1,000-$2,499
  • Quarter page ad in print program
  • Name on DCFYI website; if organization, will include logo & link to website
  • Organization name and logo on thank you board at event
  • Eight social media mentions
  • Six tickets to reception
Sapling
$500-$999
  • Sponsor name and logo in print program
  • Name on DCFYI website; if organization, will include logo & link to sponsor website
  • Six social media mentions
  • Four tickets to reception
Seed
$250-$499
  • Listing in print program
  • Name on DCFYI website; if organization, will include logo & link to website
  • Social media thank you
  • Two tickets to reception

Thank you to the generous 2017 and 2018 Establishing Roots sponsors!

Towering Tree ($5,000-$9,999)

Sustaining Stream ($2,500-$4,999)

 

Supportive Branch ($1,000-$2,499)

Sapling ($500-$999)

   

Seed ($250-$499)

                             

Individual Sponsors

  • Towering Tree
  • Steve & Vicki Hart
  • Sheltering Stream
  • Sarah Buckbee & Manoj Sthyaraj
  • David & Linda Keely
  • Sam Maruca & Linda McKoy
  • Supportive Branch
  • Gail Amidzich & Louis Barbash
  • Jeff & Deanna Burns
  • Kimberly Greco
  • Marda Robillard
  • Chris & Jerita Salley
  • Megan Stockhausen
  • Kristi Walseth
  • Sapling
  • Rhonda Fields
  • Erich Hintz & Kristina McNeff
  • Debbie & Leo Jardot
  • Josette McMichael
  • Keith & Jane Mezera
  • Michele Reed
  • Seed
  • Ted Bornstein & Lesley Weiss
  • Debbie Danielson
  • Martin Frost
  • Julie & Manuel Galdo
  • Jackie Gillan & Ernie Beyard
  • Melissa Glynn
  • Pauline Dinh Hill
  • Louise Hilsen
  • Lou Ivey
  • Deborah Jansen & Chris Jackson
  • Derek & Sara Lemke-von Ammon
  • In memory of Louis Ridley, Jr.
  • Michelle Sims
  • Judie Stone
  • Dan & Martha Weinfurter

2017 Establishing Roots Honorary Co-Chairs

  • Councilmember Charles Allen
  • Councilmember Anita Bonds
  • Councilmember Jack Evans
  • Councilmember Vincent Gray 
  • Councilmember David Grosso
  • Councilmember Brianne Nadeau
  • Councilmember Elissa Silverman
  • Councilmember Brandon Todd
  • Senator Tammy Baldwin (WI)
  • Senator Roy Blunt (MO)
  • Senator Ben Cardin (MD)
  • Senator Thad Cochran (MS)
  • Senator Al Franken (MN)
  • Senator Chuck Grassley (IA)
  • Senator Tim Kaine (VA)
  • Senator Angus King (ME)
  • Senator Roger Wicker (MS)
  • Representative Don Bacon (NE)
  • Representative Karen Bass (CA)
  • Representative Diane Black (TN)
  • Representative Jim McGovern (MA)
  • Representative Gwen Moore (WI)
  • Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC)
  • Representative John Shimkus (IL)
  • Representative Fred Upton (MI)
  • Representative Marc Veasey (TX)