CarePortal provides vital assistance to children, families in crisis

HARLINGEN — There’s a crisis in the middle of the night and suddenly a woman’s grandchildren have filled her small home.

She did not know this would happen and so she has no preparations to accommodate her grandchildren — no beds, no playpens, no car seats.

Such a sudden upending of a woman’s quiet life can be frightening and hard to comprehend, but fortunately a system of churches is on standby ready to help.

Welcome to CarePortal, launched in 2015 by The Global Orphan Project. The platform has expanded across the United States, engaging child welfare agencies, schools, pregnancy centers, churches, businesses, volunteer organizations and more to facilitate local, proactive and effective care for kids, says it’s website, careportal.org.

Here in the Valley, CarePortal churches work closely with the Texas Department of Child and Family Services to help children in emergency situations.

Valley Praise at 1927 W. Jefferson Ave. in Harlingen is one of those churches. Melissa Zepeda has worked long and hard the past two or three years as its ministry coordinator to serve this crucial need.

“We’re kind of like a central station for CarePortal in the Valley,” Zepeda said. “That means that any of the churches all around the Rio Grande Valley, if they want to help meet a need of a family and don’t have the means to meet that need themselves, they will contact me.”

It begins with a call to child protective services which gathers information about a family and then submits a request through the CarePortal website. Churches across the Valley can see that request and one or more churches will help meet that need.

“We all work together so there might be a church in McAllen that can meet a need in Harlingen or vice versa,” Zepeda said. “We work together to try and get the need met.”

Most often those needs are of a practical nature: car seats, toddler seats, toddler beds and playpens.

Most often CarePortal churches purchase such items through monetary donations at careportal.org.

Locally, Valley Praise can receive those items directly and can keep them in a designated area until a family reaches out. For more information, call Valley Praise at 956-230-1521. Lepeda can be reached at [email protected].