Exciting news from OFA!

This week, Orphan Foundation of America will be launching our new website. The address will stay the same, www.orphan.org, but we’ll look completely different. Visit us later this week to see new information in a fresh new layout.

Find out about Foster Care to Success, our national movement to get adult volunteers engaged in the lives of foster youth in their communities, and apply to participate through our online questionnaire. Get up-to-the minute news about all of OFA’s programs, including InternAmerica, Care Packages and Scholarships. And we are very proud of Student Expressions, which displays the poetry, prose and artwork of OFA students from all across the country.

We promise you’ll like it!

10 … nine … eight … the countdown has begun.

The 2010-11 OFA/Casey scholarship online application closes at midnight on Wednesday, March 31.

If you are a college student or you’re in a post-secondary technical training program and you spent at least your 17th year in foster care, you can apply for a scholarship through OFA.

Click here to see the full eligibility requirements and to apply.

OFA/Casey scholarships provide not only the funding you need to go to school, but a support system including care packages, mentoring, academic coaching and even the chance to participate in an internship.

If you’d like to sponsor a young person in college – there’s no deadline for that! Email scholarships@orphan.org and ask how you can help. We’d be glad to tell you all you need to know.

Washington, D.C. — Without a support system, most students would have a hard time getting through college. That’s especially true for youth transitioning out of foster care.

With no family to rely on, Toni Little, who had been in foster care in Connecticut, found that support from the Orphan Foundation of America (OFA), which gave her a $4,000 scholarship, as well as care packages, mentors, counseling and guidance to help her through Johnson State College in Vermont.

Read more…

Did you know this week is “Power of the Reusable Bag” week? We didn’t either, but we’re glad we learned – because Poksak reusable bags celebrate the power of foster youth in college as well.

Poksak donates 25 cents from every bag sold to their scholarship fund, administered by OFA. The bags are wonderful – OFA staff members carry them everywhere. They fit in your handbag, the glove compartment of your car or your raincoat pocket. Get one or get several. Save the environment, have a handy-dandy tote bag ready any time you need it, and support America’s foster youth. Talk about a win-win-win!

Poksak and OFA are featured on two websites this week – check it out at mothersactingup.org and kidoinfo.com.

Hey all you knitters, crocheters and weavers out there. The scarves have gotten to the students and they LOVE THEM!!!!!

We have already gotten lots of thank you emails from the students. But one was especially sweet because the young woman actually wanted to personally thank the person who knitted her scarf. At first I thought to myself, “How in blazes am I going to figure out exactly who knitted one of the thousands of scarves we received and sent in the care packages?” I mean really? REALLY!

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Sometimes we get such a potent reminder of why our work is so important, and why our students are so wonderful. Our scholarship question for returning students asks them to reflect upon the last year and plan for the next. After the first year, we always send them back their previous year’s essay so that they have something to go on. Ebony C, of Evansville, IN, has five children, the youngest with serious medical conditions, but she tries so hard and never gives up.

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