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Writer's pictureAngel Williams

Help Needed With Setting Up New Location


As you are hopefully now aware, All For Family recently acquired a 2nd visit location at Exchange Church in Arnold. Though this will not give us the permanent indoor playground we were dreaming of, it does still afford us room for a portable indoor playground, as well as space for an outdoor playground, for which we are very grateful. This opportunity allows us to stay within a healthy budget, while still helping serve as many foster children and families as possible.


However, to further help us maintain our budget, there are some items we are in need of, as well as one area we could use manual assistance with. We would be sincerely grateful for any donations & volunteer service that would help us with our cause.


Outdoor Playground Needs:

The gravel previously used by Exchange Church for their playground has, unfortunately, become a neighborhood litter box for strays. We could really use help removing this gravel & hauling it away. If anyone knows a company who could volunteer to do this for us, or someone who needs land fill material who could safely haul it away for free, please send them our way. Until this is removed, we cannot set up our outdoor playground, but we also don't want to see a big chunk of our budget go toward the removal.


Once the gravel is removed, we will need to put down some kind of protective play surface, as well as fencing, and we would be grateful for any donations toward this cause. We are also in need of playground equipment, such as Little Tikes, Step 2 Climbers, and a portable basketball hoop for our older clients. We would also very much like to have a picnic table for our families and volunteers to sit at while the children play outside. We anticipate that it will cost around $3,000 to set up a decent playground.


Indoor Playground Needs:

The portable indoor playground we hope to set up will be used not only for bio parent visits, but for sibling visits, to entertain children during foster parent support groups, and for foster care birthday parties. Given the need for portability due to using a shared space with the church, we would like to purchase the necessary equipment and subscription for interactive floor play. With such a subscription, we will be able to regularly change out games/play, & they are designed where multiple children can use them at one time. The best pricing we have found for this is through LumoPlay, &, since it is portable, we can use it anywhere, including if we want to help other foster parent organizations with events. The estimated cost for the needed equipment is $1,000, and we would be grateful for any contributions toward this cause. Several other similar systems we have researched are several thousand dollars, are not necessarily portable, and often do allow you to own your own equipment. Here is a link to explore what we are talking about: https://www.lumoplay.com/


Beyond the interactive floor play, we are in search of toys & shelving that can easily be moved in and out of the fellowship hall we will be using for the indoor playground. Our plan is to use command hooks to hang magnetic boards along the walls. So we are in need of magnetic boards and magnetic toys (i.e. magnetic tiles, magnetic marble run, etc). We also need shelving with wheels, and we would very much like to have a variety of sensory toys.


Older Youth Needs:

For our older youth, we would like to put together a large tub of mini Legos for them to build with. We would also like to add an Xbox, Xbox controllers, and nonviolent child appropriate games to our older child(ren) visit room. Several of our older youth also enjoy adult coloring books & bead/bracelet type crafts. Our boys tend to like putting together Lego Cars, or doing remote control cars during their visits.


Younger children Needs:

For our younger children, beyond the items mentioned above, they often love kinetic sand, Play Dough, and crafts. Several also enjoy Magic Track Cars, hot wheels, & remote control cars. Ride on toys would also be most welcome by our younger children, as well as push/pull, and interactive toys. Building blocks and Legos would also be a welcome addition, along with a variety of board & card games.


Cleaning Equipment:

As we will be using flooring that is both carpet and linoleum, we could really use a multi-floor surface bag-less vacuum, as well as a steam mop. We could also use a portable container to hold our disinfectant wipes and paper towels and trash bags for family visits, and we could always use disinfectant wipes, paper towels, and trash bags.


Family Needs:

At our Hillsboro visit location, we realized a need for a mini fridge with a freezer, but never had room to put one there. Our new location has room for either a mini fridge or standard fridge, and we would be grateful for a donation of this item as well. Families are required to bring food to feed their children during their visit, but they do not have a way to keep it cold. This is particularly important for certain formulas and baby food. We also need a way to have ice packs on hand for any unexpected play injuries, and we have had times where parents forget to bring a snack or drink for their children, particularly if it is their first visit with us. Having a refrigerator would greatly help with this need.


Lending Library: We would like to have a variety of parenting resource books on hand that both our foster parents and bio parents can use to further help them with their parenting needs and growth, so we have included several of these items in our Amazon Wish List, along with several of the items mentioned above, and which can be found at this link: https://smile.amazon.com/hz/charitylist/ls/2YWQAOTG8R87B/ref=smi_ext_lnk_lcl_cl


For many of the items listed above, and which are in our Amazon Wish List, we are open to used items, as long as they are in clean, good, working condition. This is particularly true for the books we would like for our lending library.


If you have any items that could help us, we will be accepting donations at Exchange Church (2384 Starling Airport Rd, Arnold) on both March 14th and March 30th from 5:30 -8pm. Additional times can be arranged on as needed basis, and monetary donation can be made through our allforfamily.net website, our allforfamily12 Facebook page, or mailed to our 2429 Cambridge Rd, High Ridge, MO 63049 mailing address.


As always, we are sincerely grateful for your support. All For Family could not do the work we do without the help and support of our caring community.


We can't wait to see everything that All For Family accomplishes this year once we are fully set up in our new location. We see amazing things on our horizon, and we hope you will join us to be a part of it.



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