Bloom

Foster families face overwhelming challenges. Bloom strives to lend dignity, warmth and convenience to stressful scenarios involving foster children. “That first day with a new family can be the most difficult of a child’s life,” says Becky Davenport, president and CEO of the nonprofit that has donation facilities in Fayetteville and Rome. “It can be very dehumanizing at a tender age, so we try to let the child know they are not just a number in a system.”

Bloom started in 1989 as a residential group home, expanding to two homes in 1998, but it changed its formatting in 2007 as challenges to custody shifted to foster families. Today, it has a program called Bloom University that provides trauma-informed training programs for foster families, foster care staff and birth families. And its Bloom Beyond program helps kids who are 18 to 26 transition out of the system with mentors, skills training and community connections.

One of Bloom’s signature programs is the Bloom Closet, which operates two retail-style boutiques where foster children and their families can shop for free clothing, diapers, toys, books and school supplies and other essential items. Many items are brand new, donated by corporate partners like Carter’s and Bombas Socks. “What we offer is not a second-rate shopping experience,” says Davenport.

The Bloom Closet Express is a 21-foot store on wheels – “like the Partridge Family bus,” she says – that visits group homes and Department of Family and Children Services offices.

Another program, Bloom Direct, ships curated boxes of tastefully wrapped, customized clothing to children in foster care living in under-resourced and rural areas of the state.

In the past year, Bloom, with a team of 50 employees, has served 8,500 children and families in 142 counties.