Kids & Families Together on the campus of Ventura Charter School
June 7, 2021, was the culmination of a year-long project by the 3rd grade classes at Ventura Charter School of Arts & Global Education (VCS). Teachers, Flow Hansmeier and Emily Noel worked with their students on a year-long “Peace Project”. During the first half of the year, students interviewed (via Zoom) various individuals from organizations within the community asking the question, “How do you bring peace into the world?”
As part of this project, the students interviewed Kids & Families Together (K&FT)’s Co-Founder Faith Friedlander, LMFT in October of last year. Faith, an adoptee herself, explained how K&FT helps children, many who are adopted or in foster care, along with their families, though counseling programs and support services and various resource events during the year.
As a way to wrap up the school year, the students wanted to find a way to give back and help others in the community so they selected one of the individuals/organizations they had interviewed during the year. The students chose to support K&FT’s annual school supply event hosted for Ventura County Foster/Resource, Kinship and Adoptive Families who are working in programs with K&FT.
During the month of May, the 3rd graders at VCS established a “School Supply Drive” and promoted the event throughout the entire K – 8 campus by making posters and talking with the other classes. On Monday June 7th, Carrie McAuliffe, Heart 2 Heart Program Manager, and Amy Huot, Outreach Manager, with K&FT paid a visit to the school’s campus, to thank them and celebrate their amazing success! Students helped to load all the school supplies that were collected into vehicles to be taken back to the K&FT offices in preparation for the annual August “School Supply Gift Away Event”. Their school supply drive was such a success that the amount of supplies collected filled up two entire cars! Kids & Families Together would like to sincerely thank the students, staff and families of Ventura Charter School for their wonderful and generous support. And we hope they all have a fun and fantastic summer!
Kids & Families Together (K&FT) is a nonprofit that has been serving foster/resource, adoptive, kinship, and birth families throughout Ventura County since 2000. K&FT works with children who have experienced trauma, abuse, neglect, loss, and multiple placements. K&FT also works with caregivers who need specialized education, support, and strategies to help raise safe, healthy, nurtured children that thrive.
