Gov. Mike Leavitt formally thanked the LDS Church Monday for sending a letter to its members asking that they consider being foster parents.
At a press conference in the offices of the nonprofit foundation Leavitt helped set up — the Utah Foster Care Foundation — Fred Riley, commissioner for LDS Family Services, said the church is glad to "renew its efforts" in asking its members to step forward and use their resources to help needy children.
As reported last weekend, several Utah area regional presidencies within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sent a letter to stake presidents asking for help. Riley said Mormons are not being officially called to be foster parents but are being encouraged to consider helping out.
Leavitt said the need is still present. And getting the LDS Church, and other churches, to renew their recruitment efforts is needed.
"We found some time ago that people respond better to people who they pay tithing to than to people they pay taxes to," said Leavitt, who spoke before a dozen foundation members who were in a training session to learn how to train, support and recruit foster parents.
While every child taken out of his or her home by the state's Division of Family Services does have a bed to go to, said foundation director Dallas Pierson, in many cases the bed is not in the best situation.
For example, said Leavitt, foster kids could be staying in overcrowded foster homes, or homes that are outside their school boundaries, neighborhood or even city. "In rural Utah, we may have to take the child out of the town or county," Leavitt said.
Pierson said ideally a child should be placed in a nearby home with the same ethnic and/or religious make-up as that of their biological parents.
As of June, there were 2,400 "children who needed some kind of safe harbor," said the governor, but "we have only 1,163 homes."
Interested people can call the foundation at a toll-free number: 1-877-505-KIDS (5437).