Picture this: a young man is dropped off with a foster family after being taken from his home.

This 15-year-old only has what is on his back and is wearing the same underwear he put on three days ago. He was severely neglected and needed stability and care.

This heart-wrenching scene sounds like the start of a movie, but it's not. It was reality for one young man entering foster care.

When the foster parents reached out to Anthony Poteet, his work began.

He spent the next 12 hours collecting items to help and encourage this young man whose life had been turned completely upside down. Anthony, who serves as the Executive Director of Foster Families Assistance Network, secured a Nike backpack filled with clothes, shoes, and toiletries.

Anthony arranged to meet at a gas station and handed the young man the backpack full of supplies—supplies that you and I take for granted but that meant everything to him.

Two weeks later, Anthony received a letter. It read:

"Bro didn't know me at all and gave me Nike shoes, Nike clothing, a Nike bag... like, why?"

Anthony shared how powerful that moment was for him.

"I realized then that nobody had ever given him anything of value. Nobody had ever taken the time to ask what he wanted. I hope that provided some hope for him—that not everyone is as terrible as the people he was saved from."

Each child who enters foster care has their life altered, just like the young man Foster Families Assistance Network helped early on.

While they are being removed from extremely difficult situations, they are also being placed into a new home, new school, new rules, new food—new everything.

The first 48 hours can be especially difficult.

That reality is even more significant in Tennessee.

The state ranks worst in the nation for what's known as foster care instability, meaning children who live in three or more homes within a single year. Roughly 34% of Tennessee's foster children fall into that category—more than double the national average of about 15%.

"When the lights are on, and people are moving around and things are going on, there is no time to let the fearful thoughts creep in," Anthony shares. "However, the second the lights go out and the room goes quiet, that is when it can get really challenging for the kiddos. We want to step in to meet the early needs and the long-term needs."

Anthony knows the chaos of those early days firsthand.

He and his wife fostered and adopted two children, and when their children were placed, the family went nearly two months without support. They leaned on friends and relatives for weeks to gather what they needed. Families without that kind of network often take on credit card debt or pull from retirement accounts just to get beds, clothes, and food in place.

About a year after adopting, the experience was still weighing on him.

"I felt like we reached into the system and took two awesome kiddos out and then walked away," Anthony says.

He jotted down notes about where his own family had struggled most, and the answer was simple: getting the things they needed.

Within two weeks, he had formed a 501(c)(3).

Six years after driving all over Middle Tennessee delivering supplies, Foster Families Assistance Network has grown from a handful of Facebook followers to more than 8,500 supporters, along with a physical resource center where foster families can find what they need within 24 hours of a placement.

"I see a lot of the same parents, but a lot of different kiddos," Anthony says.

Even the most prepared foster family can be caught off guard.

A home with one room ready becomes a scramble when a sibling group of three or four arrives at the door. Suddenly there aren't enough beds, enough towels, or enough food.

The needs are constant and specific: clothes, shoes, undergarments, and one item most people never think about—pajamas.

Keeping the doors open is its own battle.

The center isn't free. Staffing isn't free. And this work is Anthony's full-time mission.

The organization isn't faith-based, and he isn't shy about his view of the system.

"We are not exactly friends of the DCS or foster care system. It's broken, and I want to fix it."

That honesty can make traditional grant funding difficult to secure.

"I have emptied my savings before, dug into my retirement before. But here we are, still making it work."

What keeps it working is the community.

Anthony has a simple equation for how anyone can help:

Awareness + Involvement = Makes a Difference

Involvement doesn't have to mean becoming a foster parent.

It can mean following the organization's page, purchasing socks and underwear from its needs list, or becoming a monthly donor.

It means that somewhere down the road, another child opens a backpack from a stranger...

...and wonders why.

Follow FFAN on Facebook.

Read our first story about FFAN here.

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