Will YOU be One of One Thousand?
We’re asking 1,000 people give $10 in honor of our 10th anniversary to raise $10,000 to produce videos of 10 foster children who hope for adoption!
Commemorate 10 years with $10,000 worth of hope!
Start by entering where you like to receive your donation receipt - either by text message or email.
In September of 2014, small business owner, foster mother and two-time adoptive mother Helen Zeerip was watching a training video required to renew her foster license. She was struck by a teenager saying, “Once you reach a certain age you’re unadoptable.” The video explained children when age out of foster care alone, with nothing and no one, 25% of them become homeless.
Homelessness is an issue we face as a society that Helen cannot abide.
She knew for foster children adoption could change that path.
The video told a story about how the state of California once did a marketing initiative producing introductory videos of foster children and airing them on television. The plan worked! People took notice. “Why isn’t everyone doing that?” Helen wondered, especially if there are consistently more than 100,000 children in foster care who are wards of their state and available for adoption? So she met with Barb Aalderink, owner of Fusion Graphic Consultants. Eventually, in a meeting with WZZM’s Catherine Behrendt, they got the break they needed! Catherine is an adoptive mom too. She agreed to air foster children on her show.
Grant Me Hope’s first introductory video of a foster child was aired the first week of January 2015!
Within months, Grant Me Hope launched in the Detroit market. The next year we launched in Northern Michigan with the help of WWUP.
Then Ohio. . .
Then Georgia. . .
Then South Carolina. . .
In our 10 years, we have produced more than 1,000 videos of foster children who hope for adoption.
Our original three goals of educating the public about the plight of foster children, recruiting more foster families and getting children adopted before they age out have worked! We have heard countless success stories and we’re grateful to hear them even if we're unable to produce a success story. Most adoptive families choose to keep their adoption story private. We certainly respect their choice. If you haven’t seen the success stories we were able to produce, we encourage you to check them out here!
We also produced videos of foster children in the state of Mississippi for a couple of years and know from our contacts there that our program worked for many children. After a while, Wendy’s Wonderful Kids, a program of the Dave Thomas Foundation, provided a dedicated, paid employee in Mississippi to continue the outreach and educational efforts needed to ensure as many foster children as possible have hope for adoption and their future. With a well-supported, long-standing organization behind them, we, too, have so much hope for the foster youth in Mississippi!
“Going National”
Part of our success came from the launch of our “Going National” program. We have a goal of taking our video production to every state, but getting the message out was something we could do immediately. We developed 2-foot square placards for the back of semi-trailers with educational messages on them. Thanks to partnerships with several trucking companies, those messages are traveling our nation’s highways on nearly 1,000 semi-trailers. We have received phone calls from people all over the country as a result of these!
Grant Me Hope Thrift Store
It became clear we needed a consistent funding source for video production. It was agreed a thrift store is a good option. It was going to take time, investment and three to five years to see a return on investment and be profitable enough to help fund our mission. In 2019 the plan was launched, but finding the right property was not an easy task. Patience was needed and eventually paid off. We opened the Grant Me Hope Thrift Store at 5800 Balsam Drive in Hudsonville the first weekend in November 2021 and had an incredible opening day! Three years later, the thrift store has shown it can hold its own AND work as a revenue source to fund our mission to find forever homes for foster children. It’s been such a great success that we were able to accomplish our goal of making the store a foster closet for area foster families who need clothing and other necessities for their foster children.
Since then, GMH Thrift has provided more than $4,000 in goods to area families. One family, with FIVE foster children, has visited the store several times. Those children have picked out clothes, shoes, blankets, stuffed animals, backpacks and more. Grant Me Hope Thrift has saved this foster family more than $700 in necessities lightening their load as they make sure their foster children receive the love, care and stable family environment they need.
The Grant Me Hope Homes
In 2021, we launched a capital campaign to open a couple homes for aged out foster youth.
While we hope for adoption for every foster child who wants it, young adults with nothing and nobody were still aging out of care. More post foster care options were needed. Thanks to an unbelievable amount of support from our local state representatives, the Michigan Department of the Health and Human Services, Women Who Care, the Community Foundation of the Holland Zeeland Area, Trans-matic, Metal Flow and very long list of other donors and volunteers, we opened the Grant Me Hope Homes in early 2024. These homes, run by married, Christian house parents who are assisted by the GHM Homes Administrator and mentors, will teach life skills, provide job coaching, budget counseling, transportation and the stability a young adult needs to save, and confidently transition to independent living when they are ready.
There are three homes, all located in Allegan County. The old Rock Island Restaurant building was bought by neighboring business K&R Truck Sales. K&R has donated it to us to use in perpetuity. The Rock was completely gutted, remodeled and developed into a dormitory style home that can house up to 16 young men. The Amazing Grace House has a flower and gift shop attached complete with a green house! This home provides on-site job training that also allows residents to use their creativity to produce flower arrangements and other handmade items. (Watch our social media accounts for news about the grand opening. You may also sign up for our email newsletter by emailing info@grantmehope.org from the email address you would like to receive the news in. We’ll do the rest!) The third home is a stately old Victorian home that most recently was a bed & breakfast set in a beautiful area with an expansive and beautiful yard surrounding it. Intake is available in these homes right now. More information here.
Private Adoption Services
Ever passionate about adoption, Founder Helen Zeerip couldn’t stand the cost to young couples struggling with infertility who wanted to adopt privately. Again, she thought there must be a better way! With lots of patience again we delved into the idea and started working toward the goal.
We now have a specialist in private adoption on our staff with more than 25 years of experience in private adoption. If you or someone you know is facing an unplanned pregnancy or struggling as a new parent and you don’t know what to do for the baby, you can call or text 616-403-5657 any time to learn how private adoption works. First and foremost, women should know, private adoption puts them in charge.
Are you hoping to adopt? Learn more!
Thank you for your support of our mission!
In addition to the Grant Me Hope Thrift Store, our mission is supported by two annual fundraisers: Celebrating Hope, an incredible gala, with delicious dinner and live and silent auctions, held at the Holland Civic Center Place, it's planned for April 17, 2025; and the fall Family FUNFEST! Held every September at Nelis' Dutch Village and other occasional smaller events, such as this one.