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December 6, 2022By Mary Lim
There are approximately 11,000 kids in foster care right now in the state of Arizona.
About 3,000 foster kids are in Pima County.
There are 268 kids in foster care in Cochise County.
70 foster kids in Santa Cruz County.
Approximately 200 kids in foster care in Yuma County.
Those are the statistics that Executive Director of Easterseals Blake Foundation’s “Aviva Children’s Center,” Cristina Greenberg, shared with the Diocese of Tucson Pastoral Center employees who gathered for a morning of community and service for "Thankful Thursday" on December 1, 2022.
For weeks leading up to that Thankful Thursday service day, the diocesan staff prepared for meeting Greenberg by collecting new toys in large boxes which would be donated as part of Aviva Children’s Center’s Holiday Toy Drive this year.
The goal of the Holiday Toy Drive at Aviva Children’s Services is that every kid in foster care in Pima, Cochise, Santa Cruz, and Yuma County has a gift to open on Christmas. The cost of this annual program is $40,000, and it provides each child with two to three age-appropriate gifts, a handmade item, a book or puzzle, a handmade blanket, a stocking, and a game for the family.
The Catholic Foundation at the Diocese of Tucson, who sponsored the service project, provided 100 stockings to be filled, as well as a variety of small toys to stuff the stockings with. In addition to bringing donations of new toys, the Diocese of Tucson staff spent the morning lovingly filling these stockings to be sent, along with the new toys, with Greenberg for the Holiday Toy Drive.
Cristina Greenberg has an incredible heart for the hard work that Aviva Children’s Center is doing for foster children and foster families. They run a comprehensive program and truly do everything in their power to affirm the dignity of each child who needs to go through the traumatic and life-changing experience of being removed from their family home for their safety. As part of her work in the Center, Greenberg spends a portion of her time doing outreach and education with other organizations to spread awareness and support of their mission at Aviva.
In addition to the Holiday Toy Drive, Aviva Children’s Center has many other events throughout the year that support foster children, their families, and their placements. Annually, Aviva hosts a Sew-a-thon in August or September, where volunteers come together with their sewing machines to sew as many bags from donated material as possible – the goal with these bags is that no child ever needs to throw their personal belongings into a trash bag when they are being removed from a home, but that they have something dignified and unique, something that reminds them that they do matter and that their community is thinking of them and supporting them. In October is the yearly sibling reunion, where siblings who may have been separated when removed from their homes can come back together for a day of fun.
Aviva also has ongoing support throughout the year, like the Life Book Program, where the story of a child’s life is told in the pages of a scrapbook thoughtfully put together by a team to help the child understand their story. Weekly on Tuesdays and Thursdays, volunteers lovingly nicknamed the “Aviva Divas” work tirelessly on sewing handmade blankets and other comfort items for foster kids, as well as handmade items to be sold to raise funds that go directly toward supporting foster families.
Greenberg explained that these are just a few facets of the services that Aviva Children’s Services provides to the foster community in Southern Arizona.
55% of the kids who need to be placed in foster care are entrusted to kinship families, like an aunt, uncle, or grandparents. As much as possible, Arizona Department of Child Safety (DCS) will try to minimize the trauma and separation by keeping kids in their families.
When a child is placed in a foster home, especially a kinship family, the fostering adults may not be materially prepared to care for the child entering their home. Aviva Children’s Services may reach out to provide a car seat, crib, and really anything that they have available to offer in order to set the foster family up for success and comfort as early on as they can. They will even provide laptops and help kinship foster parents figure out how they can support the child now suddenly living in their home without going into financial strain.
It is Aviva Children’s Center’s goal to ensure that the kids who are placed in foster homes are stable when they first reach their placement, because they just went through the worst day of their lives being torn apart from their families, but being in their new home shouldn’t be an experience that adds to their trauma.
Learn more about Aviva Children’s Services and how you can help
Aviva Children’s Services is a charitable tax credit agency