EMMAUS, Pa. (WFMZ) — A Lehigh Valley non-profit that serves local children and teens in foster care is expanding its reach. The Kindness Project, which is based in Emmaus and runs on donations, just unveiled its new mobile boutique.
The mobile boutique called The Kindness Express will serve two purposes: to gather donations across the community and to bring essential supplies directly where they’re needed.
“We have just so many foster families traveling to our boutique here in Emmaus, regularly driving 2-3 hours to get the things they need and so we decided that we want to make it a little easier for them and take the boutique to them,” said founder Jenae Holtzhafer.
That’s where The Kindness Express comes in.
“One of the greatest needs that we see in our community is that teenagers typically age 12 and up are not set into traditional foster families and so they are residing at KidsPeace, Valley Youth House, Children’s Home of Easton, places like that and don’t have the means to get to our boutique,” Holtzhafer explained.
Holtzhafer told us there are 15,000 children and teens in foster care across Pennsylvania and the mobile boutique, in partnership with Lehigh Valley Reilly Children’s Hospital, helps The Kindness Project get on the road and serve underserved communities.
The first phase will be to take the truck around the community and stuff it with donations. The second phase will be to create a personal shopping experience inside for teens who are unable to make it to the physical store.
“We want to take this to them so they have the same opportunity for dignity and choice,” Holtzhafer stated.
The Kindness Project is looking to partner with those in the community to set up “stuff the truck” donation drives.