‘Something they can make their own’

Sara Stovall of Joliet has been a foster mom a short time.

But she can’t wait until an “angel bear” arrives at her house.

Her friend Janet Palkon of Joliet has been a foster mother for more than four years and has fostered more than 25 children from newborn to age 18.

Palkon, who’s also collected school supplies and holiday gifts for foster kids and surprises them with visits from the Easter Bunny at Easter (with help from her husband, Bob, also a foster parent), is sending these bear kits to various foster families locally and beyond.

Stovall said to foster kids, these angel bears are guardian angels.

“A lot of times, when kids go into care, they literally have nothing but the clothes on their backs,” Stovall said. “To have something special is important and gives them comfort.”

Palkon said the angel bear concept grew from a desire to continue honoring her former foster children on their birthdays. Usually, Palkon performs a random act of kindness. This year, she felt the need to do more.

When children go into foster care, Palkon said, they’ve lost their parents – and often their siblings, too – their home, their possessions and everything familiar to them. Their grief is real and intense. And no matter how loving the foster parents are, kids often still whimper in their beds at night.

“I thought, ‘Maybe if they had a teddy bear,’” Palkon said. “A teddy bear is never going to talk back. You can tell anything to a teddy bear and it’s never going to share it with anyone. Just holding it can make them feel loved, that someone is in their corner.”

Because Palkon is connected with the foster parent community via social media, she reached out to various groups and asked who wanted bears.

“I said, ‘I’d like to give away 100 of these bears,’ ” Palkon said.

The count is now at 582 requests and growing. An army of volunteers are helping Palkon assemble the bears. Donations have helped cover the cost of materials and out-of-state shipping (bears to Chicago-area recipients are hand-delivered), but Palkon can always use more.

She is determined that any child who wants an angel bear should have one.

“I tell people they will get a bear,” Palkon said. “It might take four months, but they will get a bear.”

The angel bears actually come in a kit for the child to assemble because many of these children will never have the joy of going to Build-A-Bear, Palkon said.

“Basically, there’s so many things these kids are never going to experience in their lifetime that other kids take for granted,” Palkon said.

Plus, because children are creating their own bears, they can write a wish on a slip of paper and slide it inside the bear before closing it up.

Palkon hopes the bears bring comfort.

“I think a lot of these kids experience a lifetime of heartache,” Palkon said. “Kids, no matter if they’re 3 or 18, deserve to feel that there’s people in the world that want the best for them. You can never love a child too much.”

Erin Cohan, foster program director for Guardian Angel Community Services in Joliet, called Janet Palkon’s angel bear program “phenomenal.”

“It’s a great way to build awareness for children in care as well as the need for foster parents,” Cohan said.

How big is the need?

“Pretty big,” Cohan said. “There are over 125,000 in care just in Illinois. Our program serves anywhere from 85 to 100 kids at one time throughout a fiscal year and those numbers are constantly changing as our children move through the system and achieve permanency, but it’s difficult.”

The kids, Cohan said, range from newborn to age 21, all ages, races and genders. They cannot come into care after age 18, but they can remain in foster care until age 21.

“Our job is to find good and reliable homes for them in their time of need,” Cohan said.

Even though more foster parents are needed overall, foster parents are especially needed for older sibling groups.

“I have sibling groups of five, six and eight right now,” Cohan said. “It’s very difficult to find homes that will take in more than two children.”

Not every foster parent is the right fit for every child, so sometimes foster children spend time in more than one home, Cohan said. Fostering in itself can be challenging. The child is most likely grieving.

He not only has lost his parents, he may have lost his sibling and most of his possessions including clothing, toys and car seat, Cohan said.

“I’ll get woken up at 2 a.m. because DCFS is looking for a home and I’m on rotation,” Cohan said. “I’m waking up people at 2 a.m. looking for homes. It’s a need.”

That’s what makes Palkon’s angel bears so comforting to the children. Although they may receive a bag with some comfort items, such as a blanket or stuffed animal, at the time they are taken into care, the bears are different.

“It’s something they can make their own,” Cohan said.