Foster CARE Closet helps give supplies to foster parents

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By NANCY HICKS / Lincoln Journal Star

The Foster CARE Closet was born out of frustration.

About 7:30 one spring night, a case worker brought three sisters to the home of Leigh and Patrick Esau. It was an emergency foster care placement.

The three girls, twins who were 3 and a 2-month-old baby, came with just the clothes they were wearing. Nothing else.

View Slideshow

Lee Esau (left) and Denise Powell sort through donated children's clothing to stock The Closet, an organization that helps foster parents outfit their kids. Esau, Powell and volunteers picked through items donated by Neat Repeats. (WILLIAM LAUER)

How you can help

Right now the Foster CARE Closet needs coats for all ages.

The closet is always looking for big ticket items: car seats, cribs, high chairs, strollers.

The closet also needs teen clothes and outfits for church (dressy clothes) for both girls and boys.

Used clothing donations are always welcome, but the closet only accepts new socks and underwear.

The closet provides items free to caretakers of any child who is a state ward. Both donations and shopping are done by appointment.

Call 617-0667

“It was right after we had 17 inches of snow and the twins had flip flops, jeans, a t-shirt and a spring jacket,” said Leigh Esau. “The baby had the sleeper and the diaper she was wearing.”

The Esaus tried to make the children comfortable in their home and at the same time make hurried calls to neighbors and friends to gather up clothes, a crib, bottles.

There has got to be a better way, they thought.

So the couple began collecting stuff — clothes, shoes, high chairs and more that could be passed on to foster parents like themselves.

In a year and a half, the non profit Foster CARE Closet has grown from a few cardboard boxes of clothes to thousands of outfits hanging on racks, three tiers high, in a 1,000-square-foot warehouse-like space in central Lincoln.

Last week, Joan Kinsey, a foster mom who has cared for about 60 foster children over the past 15 years, had an emergency placement and called the closet for an appointment.

“I got a placement last night about 9:15., and she’s got a few clothes, but they are mostly summer. It’s getting a little chilly now.”

Kinsey picked out a couple pairs of jeans and warmer tops from the used clothes. All for free.

When a child first goes into the foster care system, there is a $200 voucher for clothes and other necessities. “By the time you get diapers and wipes and a few outfits, the money is gone,” said Esau.

And there is no money later, when summer turns to winter, or the child grows six inches.

The closet helps ease the stress and cost of caring for foster kids, kids who sometimes come with just the clothes on their back, kids who often come in groups — two or three siblings at a time, said Leigh.

Between September 2006 through July 2007, the Closet has served 339 clients and distributed 4,133 items — from onesies to cribs and car seats.

Esau called the newspaper to talk about the non-profit Closet after reading a story about Nebraska’s low foster care payment rates. There are things wrong with the system, but they are probably not going to be fixed anytime soon, she said.

Rather than mope around and complain, the Esaus and the parents who volunteer to help them, decided to make a difference themselves.

The Nebraska Foster and Adoptive Parents Association, which helped the Esaus get the non-profit off the ground, provides educational and technical help to foster parents.

The Closet “helps meet the tangible, physical needs of the children,” she said.

The Closet is a community effort, she said.

The non-profit gets donations from individuals and leftovers from a number of consignment stores: Neat Repeatz, Take 2, Plato’s Closet. They got backpacks from the Center for People in Need, hangars from ShopKo, racks from the old K-mart.

daVinci’s provides lunch to the volunteers who come on one Saturday each month to sort and hang clothes. 84 Lumber donated the wood for the racks where the clothes now hang and Thompson Realty donates the space.

The three little girls whose arrival sparked creation of the Foster CARE Closet have gone back to their mother, said Esau.

But the closet keeps on growing and giving.

Reach Nancy Hicks at 473-7250 or nhicks@journalstar.com.