Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep

Our days are busy, filled with work, sporting events, family commitments and keeping the wheels of life moving. When we finally settle down for the evening and slip into slumber, most of us don’t think twice about where we, or our children, will sleep for the evening. But what if this wasn’t the case? What would you do if you or your child didn’t have a place to sleep, or didn’t know where you might be spending the night? This is the case for many of the children in the foster care system.

There are approximately 6,000 Kansas children in foster care. Many of these children are cared for by relatives such as grandparents; some are matched with non-related kin (a teacher, neighbor or someone else familiar), and others are matched with foster families. Most children will be safely reunited with their birth family within one year due to supportive services provided by entities such as KVC Kansas.

However, there are about 350 Kansas children waiting to be adopted. These are children who have no identified resource, no one in the process of adopting them. KVC Kansas is responsible for more than half of all children and families involved in the child welfare system. KVC provides a wide range of services including in-home support to keep families together (called family preservation), family reunification services, kinship care, foster care, adoption, behavioral healthcare and children’s psychiatric hospitals.

With such lack of consistency in a foster child’s life, there is one thing that brings comfort to each child, as it does for all of us, and that is the place where we finally rest at night, our bed. This is where The Wood Sanctuary, owned and operated by Josh and Kelly Collard, saw an opportunity to give back. After noticing that there wasn’t much support for foster and adoptive families within the church or even in the community, they decided to provide furniture for families that had a true need. For every table or bed that the Collards sell, they will donate a twin bed to a family or foster child in need.

For the Collards this is personal. After they fostered their son Quin, and ultimately adopted him, they felt a calling to provide furniture to families that are helping foster and adopt these amazing children. To Josh and Kelly, there is nothing like providing a bed to a child or family that may have their resources tied up due to bringing in a child. For them, it’s why they wake up every morning and spend countless hours in the shop. Seeing a child smile when they receive a bed makes all the blood, sweat and tears worth it. ■

You can support the Collards family’s mission with the purchase of a piece of hand-crafted furniture from The Wood Sanctuary, thewoodsanctuary.com. Also, learn more about the children that KVC is working to match with a family on their website, adoption.kvc.org/children, or see all the Kansas children awaiting adoption at AdoptKSKids website, adoptkskids.org.

Written by: Audrey Masoner