God has been opening doors for our local church, Shepherd’s Grove Presbyterian Church, to become more involved in the Orange County Foster Care community! The diagram above shows what happens in Orange County annually, to give you a sense of the challenge. Unfortunately, there are hundreds of kids who have no family to call their own. The County is very willing to work closely with the faith community because they cannot solve this problem without churches like ours getting involved.
Shepherd’s Grove is partnering with an organization called ZeroBy2020, which has built deep relationships with the County of Orange, Child and Family Services (CFS). The goal behind ZeroBy2020 is to find a family for every child in OC by 2020 and equip the church to support them. With the help of our local government and a church-to-church strategy, we can accomplish this God-sized goal together.
SG has already started getting involved both with events and hands-on serving. Our Rooted groups (about 50-60 people) have served at three different locations to connect with and support foster families.
SG recently hosted a Family Fun Day for the Foster Community (this past March 3rd) here on campus, where about 60 showed up for food and purposeful fun.
We also hosted an Information Meeting on June 2nd for those who are interested in getting more involved either serving with Zeroby2020, educating others on the organization’s mission, or actually fostering themselves!
And, this past July, we hosted our first-ever soccer camp here in Irvine, open to both the local and foster care community. It was an amazing week of kids coming together to learn about soccer and Jesus alike!
If you would like to join us in serving and getting involved in our foster care community, reach out to Curtis Drever, Director of Missions and Outreach at curtis.drever@shepherdsgrove.org.
