“Let our New Year's resolution be this: We will be there for one another as fellow members of humanity, in the finest sense of the word.” —Göran Persson
While 2025 certainly had its challenges, our Kidsave community pulled together to ensure it was another successful year connecting kids in foster care with the love and support they deserve.
Check out these 2025 highlights from each of our programs.
Kidsave’s Weekend Miracles program connects local youth in foster care with loving families in their communities for mentoring, hosting, and adoption. This program operates in Los Angeles, Houston, and Northern and Central Virginia.
In total, the Weekend Miracles program served 190 kids and celebrated four adoptions.
In Los Angeles, our Weekend Miracles program served 101 kids, 59 of whom were new to the program. In 2025, many new connections were made, and four kids were matched with host families. We will continue to support these budding connections and help them grow into forever families.
Meet kids who need families in Los Angeles.
In Houston, our Weekend Miracles program served 56 kids, 18 of whom were new to the program. We also celebrated four adoptions in Houston, the most our Houston program has ever celebrated in one year! This milestone is a reflection of the dedication and commitment our Houston team brings to their community each and every day.
Another 2025 milestone in Houston was its inaugural Miracles Gala where Weekend Miracles alumni, Jada Flitton, shared her story. After spending years in foster care, she connected with Jenilyn and Austin Flitton at a Weekend Miracles event. Over time, the three built a bond like nothing Jada had ever experienced before.
“The moment that solidified it for me was when my parents sat me down and spoke to me about wanting to adopt me and asking how I felt about it,” said Jada. “It feels weird talking about it now because I'm still not used to being completely vulnerable with people, but they were completely vulnerable with me in that moment. Both of them were crying and I was starstruck at how important I am to them. I ended up crying, too. I felt seen, chosen, and loved, and we officially became a family.”
Meet kids who need families in Houston.
It’s been one year since we brought our life-changing Weekend Miracles program into the Commonwealth of Virginia, and we are excited to say the program has grown a lot! Over the last year, we have served 33 kids and counting and have had three hosting matches. Hosting refers to the part of the process when kids and families are approved to spend time together outside of Kidsave events, and in many cases, the child moves in with their host family. Hosting is often a step along the way toward adoption
The success of this program wouldn’t have been possible without the dedication and support of local social workers and agencies, businesses and volunteers, and our growing Kidsave team in Virginia.
Vernee Mason, Program Manager at the Virginia Department of Social Services, says, “Weekend Miracles Virginia is a wonderful program that gives our youth unique and positive experiences while providing them with an opportunity to create and build lasting bonds with other youth and families alike.”
See upcoming events in Virginia.
Kidsave’s Summer Miracles program connects older orphans from Colombia (ages 9-16) with adoptive families here in the United States. The youth stay with host families for five weeks in the summer (three weeks in the winter) and learn about life in the U.S., experience living with an American family, and most importantly, connect with potential adoptive families. This year, the Summer Miracles program served 36 kids, and 90% of the kids have been matched with an adoptive family.
Applications are now open for Summer 2026! It is our goal to bring 50 kids to the U.S. this summer to find their forever families, but we can’t do this without your help. Families can host as advocates or as a pathway to adoption.
Attend a free, online orientation to learn more and get started today.
In Ukraine, our work continued through our Corporate Mentoring program and the Kidsave Miracles Center. Our Corporate Mentoring program, Pathway to Success, served 314 teenagers and young adults, connecting them with mentorship, career-readiness training, and most importantly, a caring community.
In its second year, the Kidsave Miracles Center provided a safe haven for 43 children. At the Center, the kids received much-need rest away from the horrors of the ongoing war, therapeutic services from mental health professionals, and lots of opportunities to play. Behind the scenes, our team worked with local child welfare professionals to identify placement options, so the kids didn’t have to return to an orphanage or institution.
Through our work at the Center and throughout Ukraine, we connected 71 kids with families in 2025 – whether they were reunited with their biological families or placed in loving foster homes. For those not yet placed in a family, our team continues to work on their behalf.
Last year was a milestone year for our program in Sierra Leone, marking 15 years of partnership between Kidsave and Integrated Development Initiatives – Sierra Leone. We began working in Sierra Leone in 2010 to help reintegrate children separated from families by war and poverty. In 2014, after Ebola hit, this mission intensified with expansion to provide reunification, psychosocial support and long-term family strengthening for children orphaned or separated from family during crisis.
Today, this mission continues across four active orphanages, and in 2025, we served more than 217 kids, including over 50 unaccompanied or abandoned children who were living in the street. Over half of these children were reunited with biological family or kin, and more than 80 children were placed with loving adoptive families.
Two of the kids served in 2025 were brothers Mustapha and Ansu. Mustapha and Ansu were placed in an orphanage in 2015 after their parents passed from Ebola. They spent the next ten years growing up in the Dawar Islamic Orphanage in Hanga. They had lost all hope of seeing anyone from their family again or of being adopted. Then, Kidsave’s partners in Sierra Leone took their case. Through extensive case mining, the team found Mustapha and Ansu’s aunt, Rugiatu. Rugiatu didn’t know the boys were still alive, she thought they had also perished from Ebola. She was overjoyed to hear that they were alive and well, and she gladly welcomed them into her home.
The boys’ adoption was finalized with a community celebration. There, Mustapha said, “This day will be remembered as a new beginning. We will forever remain grateful to Kidsave and IDI for finding us our family again.”
Help us make 2026 even better!
With your support, we can help even more kids find the love and support they deserve in 2026. Say “YES” and give your support today.
