Our Mission
The mission of RaeLynn Foundation for Families & Children is to partner with families, children, and the community to create and sustain thriving relational landscapes, where all children and families receive care, education, support, and resourcing that will help them establish strong foundations as individuals as families and as a community.
Vision
We envision the beauty of our landscape to be reflected in our relationships. Where the community would meet in the middle, like our river does, with mesas, monuments, and book cliffs protecting the diverse cultures and experiences of its children and their families, lessening the struggles and barriers they face giving way to the beautiful and unique characteristics that make us individual and collective. The landscape that surrounds us serves as we serve, offering daily reflection of our unique positioning and responsibility to care, nurture, and protect what is dear to us, our children. And because children need families, we support, resource, and equip families. And because families need community, we create, advocate and promote belonging, for all.
Who Are We
The RaeLynn Foundation for Families & Children is the result of many years of dreams, heartaches, and hopes shared and witnessed by two friends, Shana Pruitt and Sharon Bouse-Ferry. Shana and Sharon met in the early 2000s, in an Early Childhood Center where they each taught littles (2's and 3's). Their passion was shared and kindled in their relationships with students, co-workers, and the families they served. Sharon was newly engaged, and Shana would soon become a kinship adoptive parent. In 2014 they found themselves at an intersection of experiences where both were kinship and adoptive parents, navigating challenging journeys of trauma, underserved kids, navigating broken families and broken systems, both becoming personal and professional advocates for children and families like theirs. Their passion for children and hearts for families without adequate resources gave way to the beginnings of a dream. A dream for the kids in their homes. A dream for their community. A dream for every heart searching for community, belonging, and hope.
Shana Pruitt and Sharon Bouse-Ferry have experienced first-hand the importance of the early years in a child and family's life. They've worked with struggling families and children, and they've been them. RaeLynn Foundation for families & Children meets families and kids in the middle, like Shana and Sharon's lives, experiences, needs and resources have; like the landscape of our community does; like the relationships we hope to have with our children, their families, and each other.