It’s October! Comfort Cases held our annual fundraiser event this past weekend, a “Farm-to-Table Feast.” It was a memorable event, with inspirational speakers, including our keynote speaker, Cowboy Jax, our emcee, the fabulous Jen Lilley, and our founder and host of Fostering Change, Rob Scheer. There’s still time to donate or contribute your most valuable asset - your TIME - to Comfort Cases. Please visit www.comfortcases.org to find out more!

We recorded our show today several weeks ago but intentionally posted it today, as we are featuring not one, not two, but THREE Good Humans: Rob’s special co-host Jill Ross, who is also the President of Comfort Cases’ Board of Directors, and Parker Lopez and Ashley Baker, who were both recent recipients of academic scholarships presented by Comfort Cases at previous fundraiser events.

Parker and Ashley share how these scholarships have profoundly impacted them and how they could advance their academic pursuits.

Beyond academics, they also are giving back to the community:

Parker is involved with “First Star” Academies (https://eoss.asu.edu/access/first-star-academy) a long-term college-prep program for high school students in foster care, while Ashley works with “It’s On Us” (www.itsonus.org) a non-profit campaign in the United States aimed at raising awareness about sexual assault and promoting a culture of consent.

Jill also shares more about Comfort Cases’ Pathway Program, which is designed to provide additional resources to our scholarship recipients. You can learn more about Pathways by visiting https://scheerfocus.com/pathways-program/

We hope you feel inspired and hopeful after listening to these fantastic young people. It is people like them who will make all of our futures brighter.

If you have any questions or comments about our interview with Jill, Parker, and Ashley or have a guest suggestion, please feel free to email us at info@comfortcases.org.

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Welcome back to Season 6 of Fostering Change!

We hope you enjoyed our first episode of the season with Andrew Bridge. This is a reminder that if you order his book before its publication date, a portion of the sale will go to CASA chapters nationwide. Please visit AndrewBridgeAuthor.com and select the CASA chapter of your choice.

In today’s episode, we have two exceptional guests - one is making her second appearance on our show. Donna Biase co-founded BEST FOOT FORWARD Foundation, a Florida-based organization whose mission is to empower foster care and at-risk youth to become self-sufficient adults and positive contributing members of society through academic achievement.

Having survived the deadly and horrific earthquake that ravaged his home country of Haiti, Elie Merisier was in the foster care system in High School when Best Foot Forward reached out to him to provide assistance with his academic studies. We’ll let you listen to the show for more details, but you should know that despite attending five different high schools, Elie graduated from Florida Atlantic University with a degree in accounting. Today, he is a licensed real estate agent.

We hope you enjoy today’s episode of Fostering Change as much as we think you will. Of course, if you have any questions or comments about our interview with Elie and Donna or have a guest suggestion, please email us at info@comfortcases.org.

More about Donna and Elie:

To learn more about Elie, please follow him on social media:

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100092082848694

Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/elie_merisier/

LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/eliemerisier/

To learn more about Best Foot Forward:

Facebook

facebook.com/bestfootkids

Instagram

instagram.com/bestfootkids

Twitter/X

twitter.com/bestfootkids

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Welcome to Season 6 of Fostering Change!

Following 220 amazing episodes, we are so excited for what’s to come this season. We have special and moving guests, and throughout the season we are inviting some of Comfort Cases’ friends to co-host episodes with Rob Scheer. That includes today’s episode, as we are so lucky to have Rita Soronen, CEO of the Dave Thomas Center for Adoption join Rob to interview our first guest of the season, Andrew Bridge, author of The Child Catcher: A Fight for Justice & Truth.

If you have a suggestion for a guest, or questions or comments about today’s episode, please reach out to us at info@comfortcases.org.

About today’s first episode of our new season: Rob and Rita have a riveting conversation with Andrew Bridge - about his time in foster care, and the battles he has fought for youth in foster care. His new book, The Child Catcher, is the true story of the fight to rescue the children confined to a violent and secretive institution in the rural South.

Proceeds from the book will go to CASA National, State, and local county chapters. Buyers should go to AndrewBridgeAuthor.com and select the CASA chapter of their choice, and 50% of pre-sale royalties will go there.

More About Andrew: Andrew spent 11 years in Los Angeles County foster care. After aging out, unlike so many in foster care he made it to college: Wesleyan University, and then graduated from Harvard Law School and was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship.

He began his legal career representing children against the State of Alabama, where his work resulted in the closure of one of the country’s most notorious psychiatric institutions, the Eufaula Adolescent Center.

Returning to Los Angeles, he became CEO of The Alliance for Children’s Rights, representing children in the foster care system where he grew up.

Andrew is the co-founder of National Adoption Day and New Village Girls Academy for pregnant and parenting teens. As Chair of Los Angeles County’s Blue Ribbon Task Force, he called for an end to the disproportionate removal of Black babies from their mothers.

His memoir Hope’s Boy was a New York Times bestseller and Washington Post Best Book of the Year. Most recently, he was a member of the executive management team for Illinois DCFS, and with Arizona as his home, he now serves on the Arizona Foster Care Review Board.

His second book about that fight against Alabama, The Child Catcher, will be released in September.

To find out more about Andrew, please follow him on social media:

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/andrew.bridge.9041/

Instagram

andrewbridgejd

Twitter/X

@AndrewBridgeJD

Threads

AndrewBridgejd

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.