Martin County Quiet Heroes: Easter Baskets filled with Love
Ericah and Sabrina Brinson, who married brothers, started Treasure Coast Foster Closet three years ago in Stuart.
Community blesses foster families with Easter baskets full of love
Sometimes love comes in the form of a plastic egg filled with candy. Or a Hot Wheels car, a chocolate bunny or a coloring book. For kids who have been uprooted from their homes, an Easter basket full of toys and candy can be a testament that they belong, that they matter and are worthy of this thoughtful gift.
This spring, supporters of the Treasure Coast Foster Closet have come through with baskets of love for the foster families in our area. Sixty-six foster and adoptive families were gifted with Easter baskets for 223 kids, in drive-thru fashion, in the parking lot of Covenant Fellowship Baptist Church in Stuart. Following social distancing rules, the trunk was opened and baskets placed in the back with volunteers wearing gloves and standing away from those in the vehicles.
Baskets go to all the kids living in a home.
“Our organization believes strongly in including EVERY child within the family, whether by adoption, birth or foster,” co-founder Ericah Brinson said. “We never want a child to feel left out. The biological kids in a family sacrifice a lot to become ‘foster siblings,’ and we want to honor that.”
The Easter basket project first began in 2019. “It was just laid on our hearts as a way that we could get the community involved in a tangible way of loving on the foster families,” said Ericah.
Ericah and her sister-in-law and co-founder Sabrina Brinson are shocked at the overwhelming community support for the project. “We were so worried we wouldn’t raise enough to cover every family that signed up on our wait list, but every single family got covered,” Ericah said. “We did a Facebook fundraiser where individuals could sponsor a basket for $25. Many gave above and beyond!”
“We ordered most of the stuff online because of Covid19. We would have preferred to shop in person, but we had to get creative,” Ericah said
Hunter Wheatcraft, Children’s Pastor at Covenant Fellowship Baptist Church, the pick up location, helps load Easter baskets into vehicles.
TCFC is a non-profit organization that provides gently used children’s items to foster families and their foster children. What started with large plastic bins in a storage unit has evolved into a storefront location in Stuart, where foster families can come to shop for free.
From the beginning three years ago, Ericah and Sabrina leveraged the power of social media to gather support for TCFC and still use Facebook as their main channel for communicating with foster families and those who want to support foster families. The Treasure Coast Foster Closet Facebook page has around 3,200 members.
“Sabrina grew up in a non-traditional type foster care situation for part of her life, so she understands what these kids are going through and knows how to make them feel special,” Ericah said. “She adopted one of her sons from foster care.” Sabrina and her husband Shawn have four kids, ranging in age from four to twelve, one of whom is adopted. At the moment they don’t have any foster children.
“My husband Richard and I felt it laid on our hearts when we began pursuing adoption back in 2013. After we adopted our first child, we opened our home up to foster children in 2015. We’ve been able to foster nine and adopt a sibling group of three,” said Ericah. She and her husband Richard have five kids ranging in age from three to eleven. Four are adopted and at the moment one is a foster child.
TCFC typically does one or two fundraisers each year, plus money is raised through Facebook fundraisers that the organization runs or by people who create a Facebook birthday fundraiser, earmarking TCFC for the contributions.
“Sometimes we get the occasional donor by word of mouth,” Brinson said. “We receive no state funding or grants, and really rely on the community to fill the gap.”
As it says on their website, “We solely rely on the community’s donations to bless our families. It takes a village to raise a child and we merely serve to bridge the gap between our giving community and foster families! We are 100% community funded (that means people like YOU!) and volunteer run. 100% of your donation goes directly to our mission.”
Learn more about TCFC at their website and on their Facebook page. Considering joining their Facebook group.
This Easter let’s remember the free gift we are all offered. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 6:23
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