A new resource center for Foster Village, a nonprofit that provides support to local foster families, opened in early March.

The backstory

Foster Village began in 2016 as a "grassroots passion project" following founder and CEO Chrystal Smith's experience as a licensed foster home.

Its first resource center opened in Dripping Springs in 2017, serving as a hub of support for foster families and providing essential items, such as clothes, beds, car seats and toiletries.

"They can come and access those free of charge when kids are placed in a new home, because typically, they're coming with just the clothes on their backs," Smith said.
The resource center provides essential items to foster families free of charge, including infant items such as bottles, baby and toddler clothes, sippy cups, swaddles and pacifiers. (Courtesy Foster Village)
The resource center provides essential items to foster families free of charge, such as bottles, baby and toddler clothes, sippy cups, swaddles, and pacifiers. (Courtesy Foster Village)
The center also has resources to provide caregivers with therapeutic support and trauma-informed essentials to help navigate caring for foster children who have "been through a lot," Smith said.


The organization has even been replicated nationwide, and now services nearly 80 counties across the United States.

The need

Foster Village has seen a 30% increase in requests over the last several years, Smith said.

The new center, located in Northeast Austin, provides enough space to meet these increasing needs, she said.


"We did a heat map of where the greatest needs [are] that we're seeing based on the requests that we're getting, and this ZIP code was the red zone," Smith said.

What they offer

Along with its stock of essential items for families, the new center currently features spaces for support gatherings and therapeutic support services. The property is also surrounded by trees and has walking trails.

The organization plans to build a play studio—one of the center's "signature pieces"—that includes a sensory room, rock walls, swings and foam pits, with space to host family visitations.


Giving back

Organizers with Graceful Spaces, a home and business organizing company that services Austin and South Carolina, helped the Foster Village team transition into the new space.

Graceful Spaces has worked with Foster Village for five years, helping keep the center's essential items and donations organized and stored properly.

Christina Lee, Graceful Spaces co-founder and CEO, said foster families utilizing the center are often walking through a time in their life that feels "really disorganized and chaotic," so having a space that is intentionally organized is important.


"We didn't really realize how much organization and creating shoppable spaces that felt like a storefront—that felt like they had care, that had the feeling of care attached to it—provided these children with dignity," Lee said. "It's not just about having a pile of things. It's about creating a space where these children come in and feel like someone cares that their life is about to change [and] that this is the hardest thing they're going to go through."
Graceful Spaces volunteers help label snack bins at the new resource center. (Courtesy Foster Village)
Graceful Spaces organizers Tracy Frank and Alyis Eastwood help label snack bins at the new resource center. (Courtesy Foster Village)
In their own words

Local foster parent Natalie Riggins started fostering in August 2020 and has had six placements in the last five years.

The Riggins family have three biological children, and their fourth child was adopted through foster care. Foster Village has served as source of support throughout her journey fostering, she said.

"That's where organizations like Foster Village come in and really help us ease the load that we're carrying," Riggins said. "I think just providing a community and a space and people that really get it—because it can be kind of an isolating place to be in, navigating hard stories and courtrooms and just a lot of unknowns—has certainly helped us make us feel seen."


Get involved

Foster Village has about 300 volunteers who sort and stock shelves, deliver items or help with child care.

"I think as a nonprofit, especially in the child welfare space, our end goal and vision is to work ourselves out of a job," Smith said. "So we want to continue going further upstream and plugging in the community where we can in ways that are preventing kids from the crises that lead to them being in foster care in the first place. The more we're able to leverage the time, talent and treasure of the community, really the better it is for these kids and families."

Riggins said there's a misconception that fostering feels like something that is too far off to accomplish, but there are other ways to show up for foster children.

"I feel very passionately that everyone can do something," Riggins said. "Maybe you can't or don't feel like you can open up your home and be a safe place for a child. Maybe that's too big, but maybe you can take a step forward somewhere else. So whether it's volunteering time or resources or finances, I would say take a step forward and don't look back."