JOPLIN, Mo. — A Joplin organization that helps foster families has received some special recognition — as well as some financial assistance.

Fostering Hope was presented a check today from the Norwex Foundation in the amount of 10 thousand dollars.

“Norwex” is a global company that sells environmentally friendly home cleaning products.

Melisha Meredith is a consultant for Norwex, and she’s the one who nominated this organization for this award.”

“My husband and I have been Foster Parents for 12 years and when we moved to the Joplin community we were looking for some support for Foster Kids coming into our home, we found Fostering Hope and they have served us as parents, they have served our children and we see them serving biological families as well as social care workers, really amazing things they’re doing for our community,” said Melisha Meredith, Norwex Consultant, Nominator.

“And we get many people send it in and this one just really really touched our hearts,” said Debbie Bolton, Co-Founder, Norwex.

“Often times kids don’t get to bring a whole lot of stuff with them unfortunately um so they can come here and it’s everything is free and most of it’s donated by our community but they can get clothing and shoes, toiletries, also beds and dressers are things we give out to families when they take a kid into their home,” said Sarah Burch, Executive Director, Fostering Hope.

Fostering Hope provides clothes, toys, furniture and other items and services to foster families in eight southwest Missouri counties.

“As you can see, it’s pretty tight in here, we have lots of families come and visit us on Saturdays when we’re open and we would love to expand this space, we have three more storage spaces down the road and we store some stuff at churches in our area so our big vision is to have everything consolidated into one spot and also have a space where we can do some events for Foster families,” said Burch.