The power of kinship: Kinnect Ohio.
HOW WE PARTNER WITH NONPROFITS
We’re so lucky to be able to partner with and support local nonprofits with every single event at Cleveland Flea. One way? The Flea Bar.
All pop-up bars (like ours) in the state of Ohio are operated using a nonprofit permit, which means that all the profits go to the nonprofit that is sponsoring that specific permit.
Having a beer at Cleveland Flea IS GIVING. Buying a cocktail is donating to a worthy cause.
At our last Night Market, the bar supported Kinnect Ohio. They weren’t able to attend that event so you’ll also find them present at #FallFlea if you’d like to meet them and get a more in-depth look at what they do.
Also, support them further by joining them for their Scrabble Tournament at Goldhorn Brewery!
Interview with Naomi Washington, Director of Development at Kinnect
CF: What’s the mission of Kinnect (in your own words)?
NW: To develop partnerships that transform belifs, values and actions to achieve permancy for all children in the shortest time possible. (In her own words, it means that every kid deserves to gro wup in a family, and the way (ther eare 2800 kids in foster care currently) and we help them by partnerting with the County to search for and engage with their family. People who would be in their own network via family or school or neighborhood- so that they grow up in a loving network.
CF: Who do you serve?
NW: kids in foster care in Cuyahoga County + 13 other Ohio Counties
CF: What would like our audience to know that maybe they don’t know about Kinnect and the Foster Care System.
For a long time our child welfare system has focused on physical safety, which is very important, but there's also tons of scientific research that shows that to grow up in a healthy and productive live you have to have social and emotional safety as well. Imagine your life without the people who are in your cellphone. If you need people, who do you look to?
Relationships make our life meaningful. Every kid deserves to have this social network.
No matter where they're sleeping, we're helping them keep relationships to siblings and other family members in their network. We're looking there FIRST when we're helping them find a place to stay.
Some kids do need to be in foster care for whatever reason, but that number is much smaller than we think. And by engaging their networks, we can get them out of foster care more quickly. For example, we'll contact a minimum of 80 people who are connected to one child. And on average our counties can contact 5-8 people, for many reasons. There's an urgency for kids to be placed somewhere so they're not without a place to be immediately. Part of what we do is come in and teach them (the county) to create policies that help expand the search like social media, for instance. We exist to help kids who need us to help them connect them to a network to support and love them.
One thing that's unique about our work is that we always have an eye to how do we make sure that these programs are sustainable within the foster care system. We're working to embed the skills into their own work so that we can step away and they can sustain the program on their own at a certain point.
If someone is supporting us, they're helping us make a really big difference for kids who are in care today, but also so that future kids are served better every year.
CF: What would you LOVE Cleveland Flea Fans to do to support your organization and the kids it helps?
There's a lot of ways to get involved with our organization! You can give directly to us at events or via the website. But also, attend our events, like the scrabble tournament. Tickets are $50 and you get heavy appetizers, 2 beers at Goldhorn Brewery, you can play unlimited scrabble and meet other Cleveland do-gooders. And Flea Fans get a By One Get One Free Deal! Just use the code ‘FLEA’ during checkout!