One Simple Wish

Kimberly Contreras, an emancipated foster youth attending the University of California Riverside (UCR) and studying to become a surgeon, feared that her studies — and her dream — would be interrupted because of her inability to afford the MCAT (medical college admission test).

One Simple Wish, a non-profit that “grants” foster youth wishes, is launching a new online platform that will improve connections between foster youth and potential foster and adoptive parents. The platform, launching in mid-October, will help “match” children in foster care with donors.

The Al Hirschfeld Theatre stage lit up last Monday night with celebrities and guests gathering to support New York City’s foster children at the 2nd-annual Voices for the Voiceless: Stars for Foster Kids benefit concert.

A night of raffles and designer handbags generated $18,000 in donations. The funds raised by the Credit Union of New Jersey Foundation’s recent designer handbag bingo night were not collected for the foundation, but were instead donated to another local nonprofit.

With the first day of the White House’s Foster Care Hackathon in the bag, two non-profits seem poised to make huge strides in expanding their reach. In the case of tech-heavy iFoster, the hackathon became a venue for repeated pledges to dramatically expand its program for providing foster youth with laptop computers.