A few days ago, President Joe Biden proclaimed November as National Adoption Month, coinciding with the nonprofit organization Buckner International celebrating its 50th anniversary in the Rio Grande Valley at the Mission campus of Buckner Rio Grande Children’s Home on Tuesday.
The event featured a ceremony and luncheon including remarks from the staff, a campus tour, a performance by the Mission Veterans Memorial High School choir and a video message from U.S. Sen. John Cornyn on the nonprofit’s website, as well as a proclamation by Gov. Greg Abbott recognizing the work Buckner has done.
Community members and partners, such as representatives from local schools, rotary clubs and other organizations gathered to help celebrate the families and foster children Buckner has assisted over the years.
“We haven’t done this alone,” said Buckner RGV Executive Director Monica Salinas. “It really does take the entire community to make this happen.”
Ever since the nonprofit expanded to the Valley in 1971, Buckner has helped thousands of lives along the southern U.S. border through social services as well as different programs and mission projects, some of which help build new homes in Peñitas.
“We have our foster care and adoption program here based [at Buckner Rio Grande Children’s Home Campus],” Buckner’s Regional Director for Foster Care and Adoption Andi Harrison said. “They have foster homes, kinship homes as well as adoptive homes throughout Hidalgo and Cameron County.”
At the far end of the campus sat on-site cottages where adoptive or foster families could potentially move into.
These fully furnished homes, which include washers, dryers and computers, run up to $700 a month with all bills included and provide space for up to six children as well as a playground and basketball court outside.
The three locations have remained unoccupied since the pandemic occurred last year, as many families didn’t want to move for various reasons pertaining to the coronavirus.
Buckner not only provides foster care and adoption services but also its Family and Youth Success program, which offers skill-based training and case management for at-risk families.
“We’re an intervention and prevention program,” FAYS Harlingen Program Supervisor Sonia Figueredo said. “We offer services to children zero to 17 and their families at no cost to them.”
Currently consisting of a team of 15, the short-term program covers an array of issues families might be experiencing with their children or parents, and provides methods to tackle the problems in order to help them grow together.
From movie nights to zoo outings, Buckner provides these families with the means to help spend time together doing things they normally wouldn’t be able to afford.
According to Figueredo, there was a decline in cases during the pandemic last year, though this was expected as children weren’t going to school, and therefore unable to be assessed by school counselors who normally reach out to Child Protective Services to help at-risk kids.
The FAYS program partnered with the Brownsville Police Department and established a memorandum of understanding to help families reach out to Buckner’s services when receiving calls dealing with familial issues.
“I feel that our organization has and will continue to make a positive impact on our community,” Figueredo said. “We’re not done, we’re nowhere near done.”
For more information on foster care, adoption or volunteer work readers can visit buckner.org or call their nearest Buckner location.
(Xavier Alvarez | [email protected])
