Orleans Nonprofit Fosters Sense Of Community

ORLEANS – When Sharon Palmer and her husband, Andy, started fostering children in 2017, they quickly realized how hard it can be for foster parents to gather the materials they need, especially in the most rural reaches of the Cape.

 “I live in Eastham,” said Sharon, co-founder of the Cape Cod Foster Closet in Orleans. “To go to Hyannis to get clothes or pajamas….I just didn’t have time. That’s where this all started.”

 Since starting out of the couple’s garage in 2021, the nonprofit foster closet, now located on Route 6A in Orleans, has been gathering clothes, toys, cribs, bedding and other necessities to aid families raising children other than their own across the Cape. Families fostering children through the state Department of Children and Families can reach out directly to staff and volunteers at the nonprofit to arrange pickup of needed items.

 “There are no forms to fill out for a family. Not one,” said Carla Koehl, the nonprofit’s executive director.

 While started to service foster families working through DCF, the nonprofit’s mission has expanded in just a few short years to serve another growing demographic, namely grandparents left to take care of their grandchildren. The numbers speak to the need, said Koehl. She said there are “easily” north of 3,800 grandparents raising grandchildren across the Cape.

 “That’s our conservative estimate,” she said. “Closer to 7,000 is probably more realistic.”

 That figure underscores a much deeper problem in the region, Koehl said. Citing state statistics, she said that 68 percent of cases of grandparents raising grandchildren are related to opioid use. That figure jumps to 80 percent when expanded to include alcohol abuse, she said.

 The number of foster children on the Cape, meanwhile, hovers around 300 a year, Koehl said. 

 “We can never predict,” she said of demand for the foster closet’s services. “Some weeks we have eight or 10  families coming through. Other weeks it’s quiet and gives us a chance to catch up and reevaluate what we’re missing.”

 Laura Hunt of Eastham started fostering children with her partner in 2018 upon learning about how taxed DCF was in serving children in need of foster care. She is currently the legal guardian of her partner’s two granddaughters, whose mother, her partner’s stepdaughter, had been struggling with opioid and alcohol addiction as well as domestic violence.

 “Luckily she’s been sober for two and a half years,” Laura said. “She’s able to work and live on her own, but that’s about the limit of what she can do.”

 When she and her partner took custody of their 4-year-old granddaughter, Juliana, in 2022, Laura said she scrambled to find what they needed to set her up in their home. But Sharon said the foster closet is designed to take that part of the planning off of people’s plates.

 “In our experience as foster parents, we thought that other foster families could use more support and know that they’re not in this alone, and that other people care,” she said.

 Brewster resident Tracy Taylor, who has been a foster parent since 2018, said the help of organizations such as the foster closet helps foster parents like herself dedicate more time and attention to the children in their care.

 “The last thing I want to do is try to scramble around to get them their basic needs,” she said. “I kind of want to make a connection with that person and spend my time with them. Because they are traumatized.”

 State Sen. Julian Cyr, D-Provincetown, said the stress can be greater for grandparents, many of whom don’t receive the same services as foster families working with DCF. 

 “There’s a number of state programs that can provide support and services to foster parents, but not to grandparents,” he said. “Basically if you’re in the system, you can get access to certain things, but a lot of folks aren’t in the system or [don’t] want to be in the system.”

 The foster closet’s small quarters are packed with materials of all kinds. In many cases, foster parents and grandparents are in need of things on short notice. Sometimes it’s unknown what children have or need until they arrive in their care.

 “We’ve had experiences ourselves of having children arrive with the big black trash bag, and when we emptied the trash bag none of that was theirs,” said Sharon, who has fostered 30 children with her husband since 2017. “It was broken toys and bags of food and clothing that wasn’t theirs.”

 The closet’s dedicated team of approximately 50 volunteers are critical in helping the nonprofit carry out its mission, Koehl said. Many are ready on short notice when a family needs to stop by. In other cases, social workers working on behalf of families are given 24/7 access to the store as needed, she said.

 For State Rep. Elect Hadley Luddy of Orleans, seeing the work being done by staff and volunteers at the foster closet brought her back to time spent earlier in her career recruiting foster and adoptive homes in southeastern Massachusetts.

 “That whole image of a kid holding their plastic bag full of stuff to this day just takes me over,” she said. A resource such as the foster closet would have been a major benefit to people like her looking to support foster children in the region, she said.

 Last weekend, staff and volunteers held their winter coat and boot giveaway at the store, which Koehl expected to draw approximately 144 families. But she said the foster closet’s service to families goes beyond providing them with the material goods they need. Staff and volunteers also work to connect families with other local services and organizations, such as the Lower Cape Outreach Council.

 “It starts with the stuff, and it turns into community,” she said.

 The Cape Cod Foster Closet is open Tuesdays from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m; Wednesdays from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and the first Saturday of every month from 10 a.m. to noon. For more information, call or text 508-514-7125 or email info@capecodfostercloset.org