The Chamber Ambassadors recently held a ribbon cutting for Elks Aidmore to celebrate their new location.

Elks Aidmore, Inc is an agency with a mission to provide youth and families in crisis with the necessary skills and resources to help heal their hearts, restore their hopes and rebuild their lives. They recruit foster parents that will provide a safe and loving home for foster youth. They always take the time to get to know the foster parent to “match the need of the foster youth,” and “keep children in this local area,” says Cathy Burks, Office Manager/Recruiter.

The staff at Elks Aidmore treats the agency as more than just a job. The diverse group goes above and beyond to meet the needs of the children. “Our agency has one staff member that is an adoptee and one staff member was a foster mother that adopted two special needs sons,” explains Burks.

The Chamber may have held a ribbon cutting in celebration of their new location, but Elks Aidmore is not a new name to Valdosta. Open since 2012, the Valdosta location has more than 1200 children in care and not nearly enough foster homes. The need for more foster parents exceeded the space at their previous location, encouraging them to move. The new location is much better equipped to meet the needs of parents and children and has a state of the art training center on site.