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Indy moms grant wishes for kids in foster care

Aleksandra Pesalj (left) and Gabby Hardin (right) lead Foster Fairies as they grant wishes through the year for kids in or just aged out of foster care. (Provided Photo/Foster Fairies)

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A local organization is expanding its efforts to make sure kids in the foster care system have what they need.

Foster Fairies is run by two single moms, both of whom have full-time jobs outside this volunteer work, but they do not want the focus to be on them. It’s all about the kids and young adults they want to make sure feel care for in our community.

The wishes include everything from birthday and Christmas wish lists to basic needs like school supplies.

This week, Aleksandra Pesalj and Gabby Hardin are opening boxes sent from anonymous donors to support an 18-year-old woman none of them know.

“She just doesn’t have the means to get everything that she needs to be successful as a student,” Hardin said.

Pens, a calculator, a laundry hamper, and notebooks, these are just some of the items the woman doesn’t have for college after aging out of Indiana’s foster care system.

Aleksandra Pesalj (left) and Gabby Hardin (right) lead Foster Fairies as they grant wishes through the year for kids in or just aged out of foster care. (Provided Photo/Foster Fairies)

“Kids who are in the foster care system don’t necessarily have everything you need even though they have all the providers in place,” Pesalj said.

Foster Fairies operates from a Facebook page and when a wish is posted, the community responds.

“Before we were only getting maybe one every couple of weeks, but now we have several in the pipeline from the last one that we just did,” Hardin said.

Recently a bed was purchased for a child, sometimes it’s a toy for a birthday, or a larger list of items like this college kid survival kit including a laptop. But for those receiving the items, Pesalj & Hardin see overwhelming gratitude for help sometimes just in the nick of time.

“When I call her to let her know that we have been collecting items for her she wasn’t aware of, she was quiet and then she just started crying. She said that she mistakenly overdrew her account and she was just crying that morning thinking of how she is going to come up with the money and the fee that was added to the account and then in the afternoon I call her, so she just couldn’t believe it,” Pesalj said.

These women say it’s not really about the stuff, but instead showing those who haven’t always had love and attention that they are truly cared for.

If you want to help fulfill wishes with the Foster Fairies, follow their Facebook page. The organization’s biggest project is their Christmas drive which benefits more than two-thousand children and planning for that starts next week.