The New York Foundling Back To School Drive 2024

Ensuring that every student is prepared to start the school year is a fundamental way you can support young people in foster care in accomplishing their goals. Learn more about how you can support The New York Foundling here.

Students in foster care face significant challenges that reduce their academic opportunities and make it more challenging to achieve success. Insecure housing, switching schools, weak community supports, and compounding challenges widen the opportunity and achievement gaps for these young people, creating real differences in outcomes:

• - 25% of NYC students in foster care who started high school in 2015 graduated in 4-years (an improvement from 2008 when 15% of youth graduated, but still below the 77% rate for the general population)
• - 43% of NYC young people in foster care above the age of 16 miss more than half the school year
• - More than 1 in 5 NYC students in care repeat a grade (compared with 1 in 13 for general population)
• - Roughly 40% of NYC students in foster care have a disability
• - Less than 3% of students in care graduate from a 4-year college

The thousands of young people in care in NYC schools must overcome high hurdles to thrive, but these challenges are far from insurmountable.

The New York Foundling provides holistic, evidence-based programming and preventative services to young people in foster care, their families, and those at risk of entering the child welfare system. We see students transform their lives through our services, such as trauma-informed tutoring, school-based mental health support, and educational advocay.

Donating supplies is easy! Either:

1. Click on SHOP to purchase the goods you would like to donate.
2. Click on JOIN NOW to start your own campaign and track progress towards your goal.

You will be emailed a tax receipt at the time of purchase. At the end of the drive all goods ordered online will be shipped directly to The New York Foundling to be distributed to kids in need. 

From everyone at The Foundling, thank you! Your contributions will strengthen our community by helping kids have a fresh start this fall with the tools they need to succeed. If you have any questions, please reach out to Janiah Heard at Partners@NYFoundling.org