🌾 What if Wichita cared more?

Learn more about CarePortal. It just takes one small step.

Author

Landon Huslig
November 05, 2025

Together With

Good morning, Wichita!

Without exaggeration, this might be the most important email I’ve ever sent out. We all have the opportunity to change the direction of Wichita forever.

Please take the time to read this and pass it along to church leaders or friends who would be interested.

Let's get to it!

- Landon Huslig

Wichita Life Job Board

Did you know there is a hyper-local job board right here in Wichita? It is also new and improved so if you think you’ve seen it before, you haven’t.

You can post all types of jobs that will get in front of 10s of thousands of Wichitans on our email and socials?

What if Wichita cared more?

How a simple platform and a united church-business community can keep families together — one twin bed, one utility bill, one ride at a time.

(If you want to learn more about anything in today’s email please visit careforeveryfamily.com or email Sadie Williams directly.)

I recently had a friend of mine, Sadie Williams, on our podcast to talk about CarePortal. If you’d like the full episode, listen here:

đź’ˇBy the Numbers

Before we get too far, there are a few numbers we need to look at.

  • 1,500+ kids in out-of-home placements (up 50% in the last decade)

  • 1 in 4 Kansas foster-care removals happen here

  • 60–70% of foster-care entries are linked to neglect + poverty, not abuse

That means that a lot of these parents who lose their kids to foster care are not necessarily bad parents, they just don’t have the means to care for their kids as much as they’d like. Some are even working multiple jobs to try to make things work and it still isn’t enough.

🛏 The Twin Bed Test

A mom does everything right to reunify with her son. The last box to check? A twin bed. No bed means three more months apart.

That’s the kind of solvable problem Wichita can crush in an afternoon.

“Everyone has a place in this network. We just have to find the role.”
— Sadie Williams, Care for Every Family

đź’¬ Care for Every Family

Born and raised in Wichita, Sadie Williams helps lead Care for Every Family, a faith-driven, citywide “air game” uniting prevention, intervention, and support for youth aging out (a kid “ages" out” of foster care at age 18).

The goal: lay down egos and logos so Wichita works together on one shared problem.

🚸 Foster Care 101 (and the Hard Truth)

I don’t personally have a ton of experience with foster care outside of knowing a lot of people who help out. For those individuals who are also not super in tune with what it means:

Foster care means out-of-home placement — often triggered by addiction, incarceration, untreated mental health, or poverty-driven neglect. In other words, a kid is with his family and is taken out of the home with the goal of a better or safer environment for them to live.

Here in Sedgwick County, foster care rates have climbed sharply. While the system was built to intervene in abuse, most removals today stem from preventable challenges like unpaid bills, unsafe housing, or a lack of basic items like a bed or car seat.

Sedgwick County makes up roughly 25% of Kansas removals which accounts for the highest share in the state.

About 1 out of every 4 youth in foster care will become homeless within 4 years of aging out and about 50% of the homeless population nationwide spent time in foster care.

If we care about homelessness, trafficking, and incarceration, we have to start here — upstream.

đź’» What Is CarePortal?

Current Example of Family Needs

CarePortal is a “care-sharing” platform that connects vetted needs from caseworkers, teachers, and community agencies to local responders — churches, businesses, and individuals — within the same ZIP code.

Think of it as ride-sharing for care.

Here’s how it works:

  1. Uncover – A teacher or caseworker identifies a vetted need (such as a bed, bike for work transportation, diapers, or sometimes payments for rent or utilities)

  2. Post – They enter it on CarePortal (takes ~5 minutes).

  3. Match – The platform routes it to nearby responders.

  4. Deliver – A local church fulfills the need, often with donated funds or items, creating a direct connection with the family.

Every dollar is tracked through a CarePortal debit card for transparency and accountability.

So far, Wichita partners have met roughly 88% of posted needs — from cribs to utility bills — and each one represents a family staying together.

🏙 Why This Is Winnable

Wichita has 400+ churches and around 1,500 kids in care. If each church helped even a handful of families a year, providing small, practical support before things spiral, the math changes fast.

“There isn’t a lack of resources or people who want to help — the missing link is connection.” — Sadie Williams

That’s what CarePortal fixes: the connection gap.

🧭 How to Get Involved

  • Churches – Sign up on CareForEveryFamily.com, choose a category (beds, car seats, utilities), and start with one family.

  • Businesses – Sponsor a category, match donations, or build team serve days.

  • Individuals – Even without a church home, you can fund a live need at CarePortal.org. Give anonymously or stay connected for follow-up.

🌱 Why It Matters

After age 10, adoption rates drop. Many teens “age out” of care without steady adults, and within six months, too many face homelessness. Sometimes they just need a mentor, or a church that “pseudo-adopts” them with meals, rides, or encouragement.

And upstream, the same logic applies: small acts of care — a bed, a bus pass, a bill paid — can prevent removal in the first place.

That’s the heart of Care for Every Family’s mission: connection changes everything.

So, What if Wichita Cared More?

If one twin bed can reunite a family, what could 1,000 Wichitans do this week (or the 17,000 Wichita Life Update readers who will see this)?

The need is real — but so is the opportunity. And when every neighbor, church, and business plays a part, Wichita becomes the city that cared more.

What do you want to see us go deep on in a future deep dive?

Quick Event Rundown

That's it for today!

If you enjoyed today, share this email with someone who should know about CarePortal.

Thanks!

- Landon

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