The Front Door Project
Every kid deserves to feel like somebody showed up for them.
Giving back has been part of Shut The Front Door almost from the beginning. What started as an online community of people supporting one another eventually grew beyond Facebook and into our own communities—especially into helping children and families involved in foster care.
Over the years, our Lover Faces have helped provide backpacks, clothing, essentials, gifts, financial support and a little bit of normalcy for kids going through circumstances they never chose.
The Front Door Project is our way of bringing that work back and growing it into something more.
Our goal is simple: identify real needs within the foster-care community and use the power of STFD to help meet them—whether that's filling a backpack, helping a foster family with an unexpected need, supporting programs that serve foster youth, or eventually creating bigger opportunities for children and families to feel safe, supported and connected.
We aren't here because we think we can fix everything.
We're here because showing up matters.
And when a community of Lover Faces shows up together, we can do a whole lot of good.
Open hearts. Open doors. Real help.
— Lisa ♥
What is STFD working on right now?
The long-term vision for The Front Door Project is to create a welcoming, home-like space where children in foster care can spend meaningful time with their parents and families during supervised visitation.
Not an office. Not a sterile meeting room. Not a place that feels like another appointment.
A living room. A kitchen table. A place to play. A place to make dinner together, celebrate a birthday, help with homework, read a bedtime story or simply sit on the couch and be a family for a little while.
Family visitation can be an important part of maintaining relationships and working toward reunification when that is the permanency goal. The Front Door Project's vision is to provide the environment for those moments—a place designed around dignity, comfort and connection while working within the requirements of the child-welfare agencies and professionals responsible for visitation and supervision.
And eventually, I see this becoming a community resource in every town.
Sometimes keeping a family connected starts with simply giving them a front door to walk through.