The All Our Kids Board poses at the Open House on Wednesday, May 7.
Reminder Publishing submitted photo
HOLYOKE — In recognition of Foster Care Awareness Month, All Our Kids launched a public service campaign aimed at raising awareness of the unique challenges faced by foster families and the state of foster care in Western Massachusetts.
As part of the awareness efforts, All Our Kids hosted an open house on May 7 for the community to meet AOK families and tour its new space at 6 Open Square Way, which they moved into in August 2024.
AOK is a Western Massachusetts-based nonprofit supporting foster and adoptive families. The goal of the event was to highlight the needs of foster families in Western Massachusetts, educate the public and encourage community involvement.
AOK, which serves over 2,000 individuals annually, operates independently of the Department of Children and Families and relies on community support to continue its mission.
PeoplesBank, the primary sponsor of the campaign, donated $2,500 to support AOK’s mission.
The space for AOK was transformed into offices upstairs and a community closet downstairs, with other activity rooms downstairs for foster families to acquire new or like-new clothing, toys, games, books, bags, backpacks, diapers, formulas, shoes and small furnitures.
There is no cost to foster and adoptive families for these items. Donation hours are Thursday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., or Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday and Wednesday by appointment.
AOK also provides programs and services to empower families to thrive by increasing community connectedness.
They also launched a comprehensive guide for parents and an AOK “ABC” coloring book to provide resources for parents and children in the foster care system.
Readers can find more information at fosteringaok.org.
AOK was started in December 2015 by Marianna Litovich, who had been a foster parent for seven years and had adopted two children through foster care.
She recognized a lack of opportunities for foster and adoptive families to connect, and started a social media group to provide a space for shared experiences and mutual support.
The group quickly grew to over 100 members and only eight months later, the group hosted its first in-person gathering, bringing together 66 individuals.
Litovich realized there was a broader need of community for foster families, so in January 2017, she launched an online needs assessment to identify the key challenges facing foster and adoptive families and explore solutions.
“For almost 10 years, All Our Kids has existed to be the ‘village’ foster and adoptive families in Western Massachusetts rely on to support them in this important work,” Litovich, stated, “I’d like to say that I created, with the help of a lot of people, an organization that is what I would have wanted when I was starting out.”
Litovich stated that most of the members involved in the organization has experience with foster care or is a foster parent and explained,
“We really pride ourselves in being a grassroots organization of the community, for the community, by the community.”
