AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) – Ruben visits a nonprofit in Amarillo and learns how it continues to provide comfort to orphans and foster children in the Panhandle.

“I was in the foster care system. “I was adopted, and my wife and I were always going to be in foster care,” said Matt Darrah, executive director of the Panhandle Orphan Care Network.

Darrah says they had some children through the foster system at one point.

“We didn’t have anything for children. “One of my daughters was married, and the other almost got married within three months,” Darrah said. “And all of a sudden we had three kids and we had nothing left for them.”

Darrah said the community stepped up and brought toys, diapers and other needed items they didn’t have.

“We haven’t had children for a long time. So the light went on and it was like, this is what we need to do to support these foster families,” Darrah said.

It took about a year to raise enough money to figure out how to start a nonprofit.

Panhandle Orphan Care Network achieved nonprofit status in 2017.

“When a child placement agency places kids in a home, when they give us the family’s contact information, we contact the family and ask them, ‘What do you need?'” Darrah said. When we ask, we do,” Darrah said.

Each placement package includes a suitcase, a Bible, a teddy bear, a toy, a blanket and a book.

“And on top of that, that’s what they need. So clothes or diapers and wipes. It’s literally everything they need,” Darrah said.

He says everything they give is new. Darrah feels that this conveys love and value to both the family and the child.

“A lot of people in the foster care community think: ‘I don’t think people care.’ And my experience wasn’t that they didn’t care. They don’t know,” Darrah said.

According to Darrah, there are more than 600 children coming into foster care in the Panhandle in a given year.

“This is too much. And when we start talking about the impact of these placement packages on kids, they respond. They will bring us clothes or donate,” Darrah said. “We reach about 15% of the children coming into foster care in the Panhandle.”

Darrah says they have a long way to go to ensure every child receives a placement package.

“And that’s the ultimate goal,” Darrah said.

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