For a child in foster care, the holidays can be a very difficult time. Remember the feeling you got when you put on a brand new pair of tennis shoes and socks? Thanks to a grant from 3rd District Supervisor Chuck Washington, The Rose Again Foundation’s “Bless the Children” campaign was able to team up with La Pointe Wealth Management and Muna Elias of Elias Shoes in Murrieta to provide that feeling to almost 20 Foster Youth at Oak Grove Center for Education Treatment and the Arts – just in time for Christmas.
In December, Muna, Rhonda Reinke, CEO of The Rose Again Foundation, along with a few volunteers, came to Oak Grove bearing gifts of socks, SuperFeet Orthotics and much needed New Balance tennis shoes.
According to Rhonda Reinke, Executive Director of The Rose Again Foundation, “The Rose Again Foundation’s primary purpose is to improve the lives of orphaned, and foster children including emancipated. We have always held the foster youth at Oak Grove close to our hearts, so this holiday season through our Bless the Children Program with a grant from Supervisor Washington, along with the help of Karen and David La Pointe, and Muna’s connections in foot apparel, we were able to make many feet happy, which makes our hearts happy too! Oak Grove is such a wonderful place for these youth – we are thrilled to partner with them to help make the holidays a bit brighter for these kids.”
According to Tammy Wilson, CEO of Oak Grove, “The foster youth at Oak Grove who received these very generous gifts, range in age from 9 to 16, both boys and girls. All are engaged in sports, and a few of the teenagers are in the Running Club on campus, so this donation of high quality New Balance shoes will make a tremendous difference in their efforts to lead healthy lives. Given privacy issues, we are unable to show their smiling faces, but their “Happy Feet” say it all!