Monroe County is forming a Keystone Family Alliance chapter to help foster families.

Commissioner David Parker talked about the alliance at the commissioners meeting on Wednesday morning. He began by referencing the assassination of Charlie Kirk and how his children are now left without their father.

“We have many people in our community who don’t have fathers, many people in our foster system,” Parker said. “We have families here who could use help, and this is designed to help our foster families, who help our orphans.”

Parker explained that the Keystone Family Alliance is a statewide program, and an initiative to bring it to Monroe County started within the past year. The alliance brings together about five churches in the county with volunteers in each church who are willing to lend a helping hand to helping hand to a family that is fostering children.

“And that means maybe once a week you can make a meal for them, just make their life a little easier as they deal with children they’ve decided to take on and help our Children and Youth Agency with,” Parker said.

“Centre County has been doing it for years, and it’s just been amazing how much better their county has become as a result of it, because the people in the community and the churches are getting involved in these children’s lives, being another example for them, encouraging the family so they stay in foster. A lot of families we lose within a year because it’s so hard to be a foster parent.”

When someone decides to not foster anymore, the children have to be placed in a new home.

“Those kids get passed around, and the more that happens, the tougher it is for those kids,” Parker said.

The alliance needs another two or three churches to get involved so that the program can be up and running, he said.

“We’re called to help widows and orphans; if you’re Christian, we’re called to do that, and so I would encourage people in your church, look at this,” Parker said.

Anyone interested in learning more about the program can contact Parker at dparker@monroecountypa.gov.

More information is also available at the Keystone Family Alliance website, at www.keyfam.org/monroe-county. According to the website, there are 24 chapters open in the state, plus eight whose opening is in progress.