Our Mission
Art Adopts a Child (AAC) is a community action program based in Baltimore, Maryland. It launched in November 2011 during National Adoption Month. Our mission is to use art to raise awareness for adoption and help foster youth successfully transition into adulthood. AAC raises funds to support KidsPeace foster care and benefits KidsPeace Empowering Youth to Succeed (KEYS) mentoring program.
Fundraising endeavors benefit KidsPeace Empowering Youth to Succeed (KEYS) Program. KEYS is a Life Skills Training and Education Program for youth transitioning from Foster Care to Independent Living.
KidsPeace Maryland Foster Care serves children in Central Maryland who need placement outside of their family of origin and require specialized services for emotional, behavioral and/or medical issues. The program helps children increase the protective factors and reduce the risk factors in their lives in order to promote successful individual outcomes. KidsPeace has been serving children across the nation for 129 years.
For more information, visit www.kidspeace.org
Why Care
Youth need relationships with people who passionately believe in them and can make them feel loved. The children who enter foster care, through no fault of their own, deserve a family as much as any other child. Many children spend most of their youth awaiting adoption. In addition to the loss of emotional support, foster care children are statistically proven to suffer disadvantages as evident by the following statistics.
Fundraising endeavors benefit KidsPeace Empowering Youth to Succeed (KEYS) Program. KEYS is a Life Skills Training and Education Program for youth transitioning from Foster Care to Independent Living.
KidsPeace Maryland Foster Care serves children in Central Maryland who need placement outside of their family of origin and require specialized services for emotional, behavioral and/or medical issues. The program helps children increase the protective factors and reduce the risk factors in their lives in order to promote successful individual outcomes. KidsPeace has been serving children across the nation for 129 years.
For more information, visit www.kidspeace.org
Why Care
Youth need relationships with people who passionately believe in them and can make them feel loved. The children who enter foster care, through no fault of their own, deserve a family as much as any other child. Many children spend most of their youth awaiting adoption. In addition to the loss of emotional support, foster care children are statistically proven to suffer disadvantages as evident by the following statistics.
- Only 75% complete high school vs. 93% of the general population.
- 50% experience developmental delays that impede their adult accomplishments, which is 4 to 5 times higher than the general population.
- Only 10% of those foster kids who do graduate from high school enroll in college, and only 15 are college graduates.
- 40-50% are homeless within 18 months of emancipation.
- 50% of emancipated foster kids experience unemployment within 5 years of emancipation.
- 42% (60% of females) become parents within 30 months of leaving foster care.
- 25% are incarcerated within 24 months.
- Former foster children are twice as likely to suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder than US veterans.
- Nearly 50% of former foster youth suffer from chronic health conditions such as asthma, visual and auditory problems, dental decay, and malnutrition.