Children’s Fund fosters hope through community

The Children’s Fund has been around for 35 years, they continue to go strong and help build the foundation for children of San Bernardino County. The mission of the Children’s Fund is to give vulnerable children support, opportunity, and hope by breaking destructive cycles through community partnerships.

The Children’s Fund has three pillars; support, opportunity, and hope. They provide these services by supplying emergency needs programs, care campaigns, and celebrations of giving.

“One of the ways we provide opportunities is through scholarships, last year we gave 266 foster youth between the ages of 18-25 scholarships; we build hope by evaluating children for sexual abuse, physical abuse, and neglect, we provide support through our events and celebration of giving,”explained Shari Hunke, Director of Marketing and Public Relations.“Our mantra is, it’s all about the children.”

The Children’s Fund is dedicated to helping the children of San Bernardino County, they believe that every child deserves a healthy and happy childhood. They reach children and families from all over the county from different backgrounds.

“Mr. Thompson is a U.S. Army veteran and in recent months, life has proven to be very difficult for the Thompson family. Mr. Thompson sustained an injury to his leg and foot making it difficult to keep up with his previous work as a handyman.

During these times of struggle, Mr. Thompson reached out to the Make A Difference Association (MADA) for assistance in providing some necessities for his family. MADA then, asked Children’s Fund to help meet his request. Children’s Fund was able to help the Thompson family by providing new bedding sets, hygiene items, and clothing for each of his three children,” shared Shari Hunke.

The Children’s Fund had a successful uniform drive thanks to donors and its connections within San Bernardino County; this drive is vital because with kids going back to school they will require new clothes.

“With the large donation of uniforms we contacted schools throughout the county to see if they were interested, over 25 school districts responded and showed up,” explained Brenda Dowdy, Sa Bernardino County Superintendent of Schools Manager of the Homeless Education Program. “If we can get the donations we would love to do this uniform drive every year.”

The Children’s Fund strives to do all it can for children and families of the community.

“One of the things that I love is we tell kids someone cares and they matter, we show that people care about them. Often people in poverty receive help but with the help comes people trying to fix them, we’re here to serve and help them work towards a better future,” said Ciriaco Pinedo, President and C.E.O of Children’s Fund.

The Children’s Fund has a lot of helpful events, their two annual events are the backpack drive which happens twice a year, and their Christmas Celebration of Giving. These events are huge and the Children’s Fund can use donations and volunteers for these events, for more information visit childrensfund.org.