Food trucks bring awareness to foster care

Officials in Oconto County held a food truck rally to help promote foster care.

The rally took place at the Oconto County Courthouse on July 20.

Two food trucks, including The Dough Shoppe and Philly’s and York King of Philly’s were stationed on Washington Street in front of the courthouse. Dozens of people showed up to the event not only to get a bite to eat for lunch, but also to show their support for foster care.

“We want to raise awareness for foster care,” said foster care coordinator Kyla Soper. “We also want to help out by raising funds for our foster children and families in the county.”

Soper said that there is currently a big need for foster parents in Oconto County. Even though Oconto has such a need for foster parents, she added that is the case with most of the counties in the state.

“There is a statewide shortage of foster parents right now,” said Soper. “Every county is recruiting really hard to get foster parents.”

She said that part of the reason why there is a shortage in foster parents is because there has been a large increase in children in foster care.

Visitors at the food truck rally were encouraged to donate money to help foster families. According to Soper, the proceeds that were collected are going back to a fund that will help foster children and parents.

“We want to host more events for foster parents, as well as encourage more foster parents to become licensed,” said Soper. “What is really important is to retain the current foster parents that we have. Being a foster parent is very hard, so we like to hold these events and give them the supplies that they need in order to care for the children.”

Soper said that there are 14 homes that are currently licensed in Oconto County. She added that she wants that number to continue to increase, but there is one thing that is especially needed.

“Our big need right now is homes for teenagers,” said Soper. “We have a lot of homes that are willing to take kids, aged 10 and under, but we don’t have a lot of homes that are willing to take teenagers.”

She attributes the lack of homes willing to foster teenagers to the challenges involved in taking them.

“Teenagers can sometimes be a challenge,” said Soper. “They have more trauma — they can be seen as harder to care for.”

Soper said that although she was not keeping track of everyone that showed up to the event, she had given out close to 100 fliers to people who were interested in learning more about foster care.

“A few people have asked a couple questions about being licensed to be a foster parent — what it entails and what they need to do,” said Soper. “We had people who came who wanted to get some lunch and weren’t interested in foster care, but wanted to donate to a cause that they thought had a positive effect.”

Another challenge of finding foster homes, was the COVID-19 pandemic, said Soper.

“We were not able to do a lot of recruitment or home visits,” said Soper. “COVID shook the community, so a lot of people were not wanting to commit to take other children when things were different with their job schedule or when their own children were at home partaking in virtual learning. It was a huge challenge for both us and our licensed foster parents.”

Soper called the food truck rally a success and said that she and other Oconto County officials hope to plan similar events in the future. She added that she is excited to get events planned again, due to not being able to plan events during the pandemic.

“We will see what the future brings and what we can host,” said Soper.

lreimer@newmedia-wi.com