A pandemic couldn’t keep us from hosting our 2nd annual Christmas Pajama Giveaway and it truly took a village to put this event together!
Volunteers from Frenship ISD HOSA and the Casey and Lacy Jones family from Wild West Vintage Decor helped us pack up over 225 pajamas into gift bags for our foster families during the week.
On Saturday Kasi Sierra and Sterling Clark from Remedy Wellness Spa (along with their amazing families) setup the perfect background for our special guest – Lubbock Santa!
We had a great time seeing our foster families and their joy when meeting Santa. Thanks to Broadway Church of Christ we were allowed to host this event outdoors and keep our families and volunteers safe. This event would not have been possible without the generosity of our community, supporters and volunteers.
Thank You
We would like to offer a huge THANK YOU to the community of New Home for this generous donation of socks, underwear and pajamas. They worked together to collect over 10 packages of socks and underwear and over 60 pairs of pajamas! This donation will make a big difference in the lives of so many foster children across the South Plains. Thank you for supporting Caleb’s Closet!
Meet Jace
Our handsome February Child of the month is 3 year old Jace.
Our baby boy was put in a foster home at 3 months old. My cousin pleaded with us to take him in as a kinship placement and we honestly didn’t know if that was something we wanted to do. My 22 year old son was graduating from LCU and my 17 year old daughter was in her senior year of high school. We thought we were done raising kids.
We had many discussions as a family and prayed a lot about this being right for us. We decided to put it in God’s hands and setup a home study. If we passed then this was His calling for us. Needless to say we passed and Jace joined our family at 6 months old. He’s been a blessing to us and we don’t remember life before him. He’s a very loving little boy and my goodness is he active! Unfortunately we found out that he’s going to have a rough road ahead with a few diagnosis we got last year. Despite this, he is such a smart little boy. Jace loves running, jumping on the trampoline, reading books together and Mickey Mouse. I know God gave him to us for a reason and we are going to love Jace through it.
– By Ida Waddell
Meet Mason
Our resilient January child of the month is one-year-old Mason.
Mason was born extremely premature. At the time of his birth, he was positive for methamphetamines. His birth mother was positive for several elicit substances and was completely unaware of her pregnancy. She was arrested soon after his birth and has had no contact since. Mason remained in the NICU for 3 months and was eventually discharged to a kinship placement. Soon after placement, his caregivers began withholding his formula, resulting in excessive crying and fussiness. In October, after what was suspected as a repeated episode of shaking, he was admitted to the hospital with a non-accidental head trauma associated subdural hematoma. He had a shunt placed and remained in the hospital for 3 days. During this time, Operation Baby Watch volunteers were loving on him. We later found that a few of the volunteers that cuddled him during this time were friends of ours.
Upon receiving the call for his placement, we were just recovering from an extremely stressful first placement and almost said no. But, we didn’t. We met him at the hospital the next day and fell in love. He came home to us that evening.
He was severely developmentally delayed, malnourished and recovering from neurosurgery. We quickly discovered he also had reactive airway disorder and was hearing impaired. Over the next few months, the shunt was removed, hearing aids were ordered and other medical interventions were completed. Parental rights were terminated and we were moved to the adoption unit.
Now, he is doing fabulously! He is trying to walk, eating everything, making more sounds, and catching up developmentally. He is adored by his whole family, especially his big sister, Avery! The best thing, even with all of the adversity, he is a super happy boy that is full of smiles and laughter!
– By Jessica and Holly Wiles
For more information on Operation Baby Watch, visit One Heart Lubbock.
Meet Samaria
Our December child of the month is the amazing Samaria. Samaria and her sister were adopted by their grandmother Francis Garcia. Their grandmother fostered them for about a year before their adoption was completed earlier this year.
When Samaria entered fostered care she struggled with her studies. Through a lot of hard work and perseverance, she has grown and is now doing very well in school. At six-years-old, she loves to read and her grandmother commends her ability to sound out her words until she figures them out. Asking her to get a book and come read is the best way to get a smile out of Samaria.