About us
Mission Statement: making birthdays bright for foster kids.
What do we do?
Birthdays in foster care, can often be forgotten and not celebrated due to a lack of time and resources.
In pairing with individual various agencies, Foster Fête provides custom birthday celebrations including a birthday cake (with candles of course!), card, balloons, and presents. Each child is asked ahead of time for something they need, and something they want, and we try to make both of those happen! We also select age-appropriate toys to complete their celebration. Foster Fête strongly believes that every child should experience the joy of being a celebrated kid.
Foster Fête is a 501(c)(3) that is comprised of 100% volunteers. We are based in Denver, Colorado and serve the metro and surrounding areas. We take no salaries, so every donation goes directly to a celebration! As of 2025, we’ve celebrated over 1,500 birthdays in the Denver-area!
Who do we support?
Foster Fête proudly supports foster children of any age, currently that is 1 to 22! We are partnered with various types of child service agencies, with the hopes of reaching as many kids in Colorado as possible! We have the support of CPA’s(child placement agencies), who encourage foster families to use our services for their children. Currently, we are paired up with the following CPA’s and we expect to partner with more in the near future: A New World Agency, Love is Trinity, Hope and Home and Courage Community Foster Care.
Foster Fête has recently partnered with Connections For Kids, a Denver Health Clinic, that supports children in foster and kinship care(they see over 1000 visits a year)! We have provided this clinic with birthday bags, so that clinicians can hand these out to kids needing a boost or some extra love near their birthday.
Our largest partnership is with Denver Human Services, who provides services to over 1278 children and youth in Colorado. Working with their case management team, we are able to provide birthday celebrations for the caseworker to bring on their monthly child visits.
The teen population is often overlooked within the foster care system. Although we serve kids of all ages, we are most excited about providing extra support to this group. We are partnered with Third Way Center, who takes in children from foster care, youth corrections or homelessness. Their goal is to break the cycle of trauma by helping young teens discover their own path to success. We are honored to provide this center with birthday bags for their residents, and to support Colorado’s largest group home.
Denver Children’s Home, reached out to us in the spring of 2022, asking if we would be able to provide Chromebooks for their graduating teens! Although this isn’t for a birthday celebration, we couldn’t say no supporting teens as they continue on to college. Such an achievement!
An average of 10 children per day entered foster care in Colorado in 2020*. Colorado is one of three states with the greatest percentage of foster children living in group homes (35%)**.
In 2018, black children represented 14% of the total child population but 23% of all kids in foster care. They continue to remain over-represented among youth in foster care relative to the general child population. The graph below shows the weighted racial make-up of children in foster care. ***
What ages do we serve?
Foster Fête provides celebrations to anyone in foster care. Right now, in Colorado, we serve children aged 0 to 22. The chart below shares the age breakdown of children in foster care in Colorado.
What do we hope to achieve?
It’s not just about a birthday, it’s about a foster child knowing they are worthy of celebration and cared for by the community! Foster Fête hopes to instill hope and support for these children.
Up to 80 percent of children in foster care have mental health issues, compared to approximately 18-22 percent of the general population. Factors contributing to the mental and behavioral health of children and youth in foster care includes the history of complex trauma, frequently changing situations and transitions, broken family relationships, inconsistent and inadequate access to mental health services.*****
We believe that “one moment can change a day, and one day can change a life”. -Buddha
Foster Fête believes by supporting a child, we are also supporting a family and the foster community at large. We strive to change the trajectory of children in our community, by enriching their lives with intangible things such as hope, kindness, and stability. For us, a birthday celebration isn’t just a celebration, it also allows foster children to develop a strong self-worth and sense of belonging within their community.
Why we do it:
”The purpose of life is not to be happy - but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you lived at all”.
-Leo Rosten
“We write to express our profound gratitude for Foster Fête's donation for children and youth in kinship, foster and group care who, often, are separated from family members and routines such as birthday celebrations. Your kind and generous donation will be a tangible and meaningful way to celebrate the wonder and individuality of each child or teen.”
- Denver Health, Connections For Kids Clinic Team
*co4kids.org, 2/1/21, Colorado Foster Care in 2020,(1/27/21)
**pewtrusts.org, 2/1/21, Giving Group Homes a 21st Century Makeover,(6/14/18)
***datacenter.kidscount.org, 3/19/21, Black Children Continue to Be Disproportionately Represented in Foster Care, (4/13/20)
****pediatrics.aapublications.org, 3/20/21, Mental and Physical Health of Children in Foster Care,(11/16)