Grant Me Hope was founded in 2015 by Helen Zeerip. Initially, it launched as a marketing initiative aimed to help older foster children find adoptive homes. There are somewhere around 400,000 children currently in the U.S. foster care system. Of those children, approximately 125,000 are hoping for adoption. As children in the foster care system grow older, their rate of success of being adopted decreases. The GMH initiative produces professional, personalized bio videos of foster children who want to be adopted. They then work with partnering television news networks to regularly air those videos, and introduce the children to thousands of potential adoptive families. They are currently airing videos in 4 states.

Of the 125,000 children searching for adoptive families, approximately 23,000 of them will age-out of the system at 18 without finding a forever family. Less than 2% of those youth will continue their education and 25% of them will end up homeless. This population also is diagnosed with PTSD at a higher rate than combat veterans. So a couple of years ago, Grant Me Hope purchased 3 homes in West Michigan to be utilized for older foster youth (ages 18-24) who’ve aged-out of the system with nowhere to go. These homes provide a loving environment with a set of full-time, live-in, married Christian House Parents, along with mentoring, comprehensive life-skills training, financial and career counseling, and Bible study. GMH's goal is to help provide them with a successful transition into adulthood and independent living.

The funds raised this month through The Dollar Difference were used to purchase items off of Grant Me Hope's Amazon Wishlist which contains items that will directly support the residents at their West Michigan homes.

To learn more about the work done through Grant Me Hope, check out their website.

https://grantmehope.org/