Welcome! And thank you for your interest in our annual Christmas Drive to help out our local Foster and Independent Living youth.
Please proceed to your sponsorship page from the menu (either at the top right of this page or the very bottom) – from there you will be able to select a youth and the gifts you would like to donate (each page also has a link to pull up brief bios on the “kids” along with their ages/sizes, etc.).
If you are not one of the companies listed, please select from one of the “Youth List” forms.
After you submit the form you will receive an email with the details on the due dates and the drop-off locations.
♦ You will receive a Charitable Contribution Form from Family Support Services as well since all donations are tax-deductible ♦
Our program focuses mainly on the young men and women who are “aging out” of the Foster Care system (these are children who turned 18 in foster care without being adopted or being able to return home – so are now mostly out on their own to figure out life by themselves).
If you are interested, here are some videos featuring young men and woman who have “aged out”:
Personal accounts of aging out
Most of these “kids” have grown up in foster care and spent most Christmases without any family and wondering if Santa would know how to find them in their foster or group homes. It’s safe to say that many of them have never experienced a love-filled Christmas with gifts or fellowship, and we want to try to help them break that cycle!
We make our main goal to find sponsors for the Independent Living youth (those who are over 18 years old) and their children if they have any. Once the youth is out of foster care, there is no other community help or Christmas sponsorship programs for them.
We also accept older teenagers who are still in foster care if they have not been selected from one of the agency’s “Angel Trees” (generally the older kids in foster care are much less likely to be sponsored through those programs since most are geared towards younger children).
Looking for a gift for a loved one? Consider making a donation in someone’s honor or memory. We will send an official thank you letter by mail, indicating a donation was made in honor or memory of a loved one towards the program.
Family Support Services of North Florida (FSSNF) is the lead agency for foster care, adoption and family preservation in Duval and Nassau counties. Through community-based care, FSS provides services and programs to help prevent child abuse and neglect, to promote a healthy family environment and to care for our community’s children in foster care. For more information, visit www.fssjax.org.
We also have some youth included from the St. Johns County child services agency, the Family Integrity Program.
Brightway Insurance, St Johns
1515 County Rd 210 W, Ste 103
St. Johns, FL 32259
904.823.3699
StJohns@Brightway.com