Each year, Oakland Family Services’ Adopt A Family program creates holiday magic for families trying to stay afloat amid housing, transportation, child care and health care costs; parents struggling to provide necessities like warm winter clothing, diapers and bedsheets; children in foster care who worry they may have no gifts to open this year; and families facing other challenges of all shapes and sizes.

Last year’s Adopt A Family program, modified to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, provided gift cards to 286 families so they could purchase gifts for a total of 667 children. This year marks an exciting return to Adopt A Family’s traditional format, in which donors purchase and wrap gifts from families’ wishlists and deliver them to Oakland Family Services’ Pontiac office.

All Adopt A Family recipients are clients of Oakland Family Services, including preschoolers who attend our Children’s Learning Centers, children and teens in foster care, families receiving behavioral health treatment or parenting support, and other clients who have been identified as needing assistance.

give

You can sign up at www.oaklandfamilyservices.org/adopt-a-family to be matched with a family in need. Donors can be a single person, company or group of people contributing together. While there is no minimum spending amount, we recommend spending $75-$100 per child, plus $125-$175 per family for shared household items. When signing up, you can select the family size or number of children you would like to adopt.

After being matched with a family, you’ll receive a wishlist and family profile that shares some biographical information about each family member and their needs and holiday wishes. For example, a family may share that they are in need of winter boots, books and toys for their young daughter, as well as pots and pans and cleaning supplies for the whole family. Gifts will be dropped off Dec. 12-14 to Oakland Family Services’ office at 114 Orchard Lake Road in Pontiac.

You can also support Adopt A Family without adopting an entire family by donating at www.oaklandfamilyservices.org/buildbrighterfutures and specifying Adopt A Family as the program you would like to support.

Volunteer

We need volunteers to assist with gift drop-off and pick-up during the week of Dec. 12-16. Morning and afternoon shifts are available all week.

Monday through Wednesday morning, volunteers will unload gifts from donors’ cars and organize them in storage areas. Wednesday afternoon through Friday, they will help carry gifts from storage areas and load them into families’ cars.

Breakfast, lunch and snacks will be provided to volunteers. All volunteers will be required to complete volunteer paperwork.

Questions about Adopt A Family?

Contact our Development team at adoptafamily@ofsfamily.org.

Does your family need assistance this holiday season? Oakland Family Services’ Adopt A Family program is open to agency clients only. Families wishing to be adopted can sign up through their Oakland Family Services staff members. If you are not an Oakland Family Services client but need help this holiday season, we recommend consulting Julie’s List to find other local resources.