Local community helps foster children on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day

HARVEST, Ala. (WAFF) - Many people came together in Madison County to lend a helping hand to foster children, even on a holiday. Event organizers and foster parents were amazed by the turnout.

A street in Harvest was lined up with cars around the block, with volunteers, foster care organizers, and a veteran service organization on the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. The main goal was getting foster kids the items they need. No one understands that better than foster parent, Amanda Powell who explains the difference lending a helping hand can make for those who are in need.

“I think as a nation as a people, we have to care for one another,” Powell said. “And if we don’t show that care for one another, our community is going to fall.”

Powell was given three little girls right before Christmas and she can tell you first hand what these foster kids actually need.

“They need things they may not have the just the essentials, and that’s most important. They need to feel safe, warm and cared for. That’s all that matters,” she said.

Ashton Miller-Harris, founder of the Foster Corner of Alabama, is giving foster children just those things.

“Now, if there is a family in need, I won’t turn them away,” Miller-Harris said. “A lot of times they come in the middle of the night, they have nothing. They have nothing but the clothes on their back.”

That is where Miller-Harris’s foundation steps in. From clothes to toys to books they try to help foster families with anything they may need.

“If I don’t have it, I’m willing to find it. And that’s what I do,” Miller-Harris explained.

Miller-Harris is not the only one lending a helping hand on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. A veteran service organization centered their focus on the youth of the community on this holiday. Jessica Sellers of the Travis Manion Foundation explained what it meant to have the community come together on a day of unity.

“Everyone is out here on a day where they could stay at home and they could be off,” Sellers said. “This is literally an example of the legacy that Dr. King left for us. It is just literally so many different people coming together unified to do one thing for the community.”

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