May is National Foster Care Awareness Month; it is a month to honor, celebrate, and raise awareness of the issues related to foster care and to acknowledge all the selfless individuals who help young children and teens in the foster system find a loving home, including adoptive parents.
However temporary foster parents may be in a child’s life—a few days or weeks, or many years—their impact is felt throughout that child’s lifetime as is that of adoptive parents. Together, these parents provide the stability and love that children in the foster system—who are often traumatized by sudden displacement—need to thrive. The team behind the Russ Berrie Making a Difference Award acknowledges these inspiring honorees, foster and adoptive parents who have opened their hearts and homes to more than 415 New Jersey children to date. For them, every month is filled with foster care awareness and advocacy.
Phyllis DiNardi
2024 Honoree
Phyllis was inspired to start We Are Loved after years of advocating for and fostering 49 children. It was her firsthand experience that led her to found We Are Loved, which provides resources, training, and support to encourage healthy and happy development of foster care families in New Jersey. Phyllis’s tireless efforts have brought hope, empowerment and vital skills to foster children, addressing the unique needs of these under-resourced and often overlooked youth.
Danielle Gletow
2017 Honoree
Danielle’s experience as a foster parent inspired her to start One Simple Wish, a nationwide organization that matches foster children and children in crisis with donors who purchase wish-list gifts for them. Since 2008, the organization has granted 350,000 wishes to children and has raised over $30 million, thanks to 4600 community partners and 26,000 wish granters.
Patricia & Raymon Dansen
2014 Honorees
For over a decade, Patricia and Raymond have fostered 29 children, many with life-threatening or special medical needs, as well as respite care of many others. They did this while also raising five children of their own, two of whom are adopted. The Dansens’ foster parenting includes coordinating medical care and myriad appointments for their children—all part of being dedicated caregivers. Their unwavering love and care have helped countless children heal and grow, creating a lasting legacy of compassion and dedication.
Janet Farrand
2012 Honoree
Janet served as the president of embrella (formerly Foster and Adoptive Family Services) and was active with the organization for over 20 years. A tireless advocate for foster youth, Janet founded the Fostering Wishes for Children program, which has granted over 1,200 wishes for wish-list items such as art and music lessons, prom attire, and more. She supports embrella’s Camp Scholarship program which sends children in foster care to sleepaway camp for a week. Janet helped create and pass the Tuition Waiver Bill, enabling eligible foster youth to pursue higher education with full tuition to college, university, or vocational school. Janet and her husband, who passed away in 2024, had fostered many children and adopted two who were in foster care.
Linda Yolman
2002 Honoree
Linda was a dedicated foster mother with Bethany Christian Services, Children’s Aid and Family Services, and the Division of Youth and Family Services. Through those agencies, Linda fostered a lifetime total of 198 children, with 144 of them during the 32 years she was involved with the three nonprofits. Linda passed away on July 17, 2021, but her legacy of love lives on in the nearly 200 young people she parented.
Beverly Turner
1999 Honoree
We honored Beverly for her extraordinary dedication to children with special needs. Told as a teenager that she would be unable to bear children, and despite living with myasthenia gravis, she has dedicated her life to caring for disadvantaged and handicapped children. Now in her 70s, Beverly, who adopted 18 special needs children over the years, currently cares for 13 children; they include eight adoptees, three foster children placed in her custody by the courts, and two who would otherwise be living in homeless shelters. Through her courage and tenacity, Turner has obtained a 16-room house in Irvington, providing a shelter filled with love and compassion.
Pat Chisholm
1998 Honoree
Pat has been the foster mother to 126 children since she and her husband Bill decided to become foster parents in the late 1990s. They have cared for children from a variety of backgrounds and situations, including some who were severely handicapped or addicted to drugs.After a three-year campaign, she established Children Together, a program to keep siblings together in foster care while caseworkers located a permanent placement. Her pilot program became the Children Together home in South Orange, a haven for up to 12 foster children, cared for by full-time house parents, a social worker, and support staff. Pat also launched Just Babies to ensure quick placement for “border babies” into safe and nurturing homes.
All of us at the Russ Berrie Making a Difference Award honor and thank these selfless individuals who have transformed so many young lives through fostering and adoption.
