Columbus churches create nonprofit to solve foster care crisis

When area churches became aware of a foster care crisis in Muscogee County, several of them responded by donating money to an Atlanta-based nonprofit.

Faithbridge Foster Care, a Christian child placement organization, received about $90,000 from area churches and private donors, said the Rev. Jeff Struecker, pastor of Calvary Baptist Church.

However, earlier this year the nonprofit changed leadership and decided to restrict its services to the Atlanta area. That led Calvary and other area churches to begin developing a local nonprofit, called Covenant Foster Care Coalition Inc., to recruit and support foster families in the Columbus area. Struecker said the group is still completing the final paperwork for 501c3 status.

“... The immediate goal of this coalition is to get churches in our community to say, ‘Alright, we see the problem, and we’re going to do something about the problem,’ ” he said.

In Muscogee County, there are 412 children in foster care, said Chief Superior Court Judge Gil McBride. The number is down from a few months ago when there were 538 children in foster care and only 67 foster homes available. At the time, about 275 of the children were being placed in nearby counties, and 250 were scattered throughout other parts of the state.

Local judges such as McBride and and Juvenile Court Judge Warner Kennon have been at the forefront of spreading awareness about the problem and asked Faithbridge to help galvanize churches to recruit and support foster care families.

McBride said he will hold a forum on Dec. 5 to update stakeholders about the issue. The meeting will be held at 1:30 p.m. at the Government Center in the 11th floor courtroom. The new director of the Muscogee County Department of Family and Children Services is expected to be introduced.

Struecker said Calvary Baptist raised $40,000 for the Faithbridge project, and the rest of the $90,000 was donated by other churches and private donors. When Faithbridge decided to pull out of the area, they offered to return the money to those who requested it. Struecker said some donors opted to have the money returned, and others asked for their money to go to a nonprofit created to address the problem. So about $50,000 was sent to Calvary Baptist, which put it in a separate account.

“It’s not being used for anything or any reason until the community decides what to do next,” he said.

Struecker said about eight churches donated money to the project and 14 have expressed an interest in getting involved. Covenant Foster Care Coalition Inc. already has a board composed of area church representatives and other community leaders. He said Faithbridge is a good organization and handled the money with integrity, but a lesson was learned.

“We learned there’s a lot of good that an outside organization could do, and they come with lots of skills, lots of experience, but they’re still outsiders,” he said. “Columbus has the ability to fix this problem itself. We don’t need outsiders, what we need is churches in Columbus to say, ‘We’re going to do something about it,’ and the problem would be resolved. That’s what this Covenant Foster Care Coalition, Inc. is designed to do.”

There are 440 churches in the Chattahoochee Valley area, Struecker said. If each church fostered at least one child, the problem would be solved overnight.

“There are more churches than children in need,” he said. “Even a church of ten can be fostering right now. It’s not the size of the church. It’s not the size of the budget. If you have no money to do this, but a heart to do it, the court system and the government subsidizes foster care through DFCS.”

Some churches have run into a jurisdiction problem when trying to recruit prospective parents.

“Somewhere between 20 and 30 percent of our church lives in Alabama and comes to worship at Calvary Baptist Church,” he said. “This is probably true of most churches in our community. It’s a violation of the law to take a foster child across the state lines, which means you cannot foster (in Georgia) if you live in Alabama and worship at a church in Columbus.”

He said that problem could be resolved through an interstate compact between Georgia and Alabama. But the compact would have to be approved by both state houses and signed into law by both governors.

“We believe this is a battle that probably needs to be fought,” he said. “We’re trying to raise the awareness in Georgia and Alabama.”

This story was originally published November 26, 2016 at 10:56 AM with the headline "Columbus churches create nonprofit to solve foster care crisis."