Tennessee Salon Owner Helps Grant Christmas Wishes Of 150 Kids In Foster Care

“The purpose of this is for these kids to feel some sort of love that they may not be getting elsewhere. Because I know that's what I needed."

Studio 1:9 Fostering Hope
Photo:

Sumner County CASA

It’s a big job, but Jordyn Clark is used to playing Santa Claus to the foster children in Sumner County, Tennessee. Clark, the owner of the hair salon Studio 1:9 in Gallatin, spends her holiday season collecting Christmas gifts as part of a project she calls “Fostering Hope.”

With help from Sumner County Court Appointed Special Advocates , Clark puts up a Christmas tree in the salon and decorates it with an ornament for every foster child in the county. Each ornament corresponds to a Christmas list. Their mission is for each list to be claimed by a member of the community.

This year, when she found herself with 150 ornaments —double last year’s need—Clark sought help from a local news station.

“Our goal is to get everything off the tree," she explained to WTVF back in November. "We don't want a single child leftover and if they are leftover we still find a way."

"The purpose of this is for these kids to feel some sort of love that they may not be getting elsewhere," Clark continued. "Because I know that's what I needed."

Clark spent time in and out of the foster system as a child. She said she and her brother were “very, very lucky and blessed” to be taken in by their grandparents when the system failed them.

As a result of her own experience, she wants every child in foster care to know the gift of love during the holidays.

After her story aired on WTVF, Clark was inundated by a flood of donations.

"I have been blown away by the community," Clark said in a follow-up story last week .

"Our door was the revolving door," she told the local news station. "We had so many people coming from Cookeville, coming from Clarksville, and Springfield."

Sonya Manfred, executive director of Sumner County Court Appointed Special Advocates, told WTVF that many kids experienced their first Christmas this year thanks to Clark.

"We have had kids that have told us 'this is our first Christmas, we've never gotten Christmas gifts,'" she said.

Good work, y’all!

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