Steelman Wants People to BELIEVE in Foster Children

A program to raise money so Missouri’s foster children can go to college has been a disappointment in its first year. Organizers hope the season of giving encourages support. The state treasurer’s BELIEVE program encourages people, organizations, churches, civic groups, and others to establish college savings programs for specific foster children identified by the Department of Social Services. Treasurer Sarah Steelman estimates there are 15-hundred children in Missouri from families that have permanently lost their parental rights. She hopes somebody establishes Missouri Savings for Tuition–or MOST–accounts for all of them. But in the year since she started the program, accounts have been set up for only four children. She says the program is designed to show foster children that here are people who believe so much in their possibilities that they will establish college tuition savings accounts for them. She says outside donors are needed because most foster parents can’t afford to put their foster children through college and state foster care aid ends whent he child turns 18. The MOST program allows contributions of as much as eight-thousand dollars a year–which can be deducted from a person’s gross income. Steelman says this is the time of year when people make last-minute financial moves to avoid tax payments—and she hopes many will make the donations to help a foster child go to college. More information is available on Steelman’s webpage: www.treasurer.mo.gov/believe.asp