Editor’s Note: The Tiftarea is home to many charities and non-profits making a positive impact on our community. With the holiday season here, we want to highlight a handful of them and encourage our readers to consider them in their end-of-year giving. This is the first part of our Season of Giving series.

TIFTON — Called to Care’s mission can be summed up simply with the first half of Psalm 82:3: “Defend the weak and the fatherless.”

Based out of Tifton and serving 20 counties, Called to Care forms partnerships between churches, child placement agencies and the Division of Family and Children Services to help foster families and foster children.

“We work with DFACS to meet the physical needs of the families they work with,” said Laura Maxwell, president of Called to Care.

Those needs can range from providing foster families with bedding and clothing to providing foster children with pillows, blankets, clothes, and toiletries.

Called to Care provides training for foster families as well, helping them prepare to host children.

“There are 165 children in foster care in Tift County, but only around 31 homes,” said Maxwell.

The group also works with parents who want to reunite with their kids, helping them set up a suitable home.

Last year, Called to Care awarded $6,250 in adoption grants to families and impacted “more than 1,575 lives through our programs, outreach and monetary grants,” according to the organization.

Through its Independent Living Program, the group teaches life skills to teenagers.

The organization is working to meet its fundraising goal of $60,000 by the end of the year with its Defend the Weak & Fatherless drive. That would be enough to fund the first five months of 2018.

“At one week in, we’re right at $5,000,” said Maxwell, in a Nov. 22 interview.

For Called to Care supporter Lisa Marchant, the fundraising drive got her thinking about how she could help.

“This time of year, every year, I do wreaths and bow and sell them,” said Marchant. “I was sitting in church and I was like “Lord what is something that I could do?” And the idea just came: What about wreaths?”

So Marchant started selling bows and wreaths, bows for $15 and wreaths for $25.

The bows are gold. The wreaths are evergreen with gold, silver or red ribbon.

A portion of the proceeds go to Called to Care.

“Here I am, 45 bows later,” said Marchant. “It’s not a huge amount of money, but whether the money comes through me or it comes through these businesses, as long as Laura [Maxwell] and her non-profit gets it.

“For my personal goal, I’d love to get every church, every business, every organization in Tifton to purchase a wreath or a bow or to give to Called to Care outright.”

“Lisa is a such a good example of using the gifts the Lord gives you,” said Maxwell.

To contact Marchant about buying a wreath or bow, call 229-848-3565.

To donate directly to Called to Care, visit their website at www.iamcalledtocare.com or send a donation to P.O. Box 2396, Tifton, GA 31793.

More information: 229-392-5293.