A Conversation with Emily Cole from Bananas Foster

Join us for a fun and inspiring conversation with Emily Cole, co-founder and co-owner of Banana Ball, the new sports phenomenon sweeping the country. We're talking with her about Bananas Foster, their non-profit that celebrates foster families all around the nation.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Please tell us the story of how Bananas Foster got started.
• What was happening in your life that made you say, “We need to do something for foster families”?
• What was the biggest challenge in getting things off the ground?
• For listeners who might not know you yet, what’s the mission of Bananas Foster?
• What are some of the biggest everyday needs you hear about from foster, kinship, or adoptive families?
• How do you see Bananas Foster stepping into those areas of need?
• What’s your big dream for Bananas Foster — say, five or ten years from now?
• You talk about celebrating and supporting foster families — can you share what that looks like at a typical Banana Ball game day?
• What kinds of local partnerships do you have in the cities you visit — with churches, agencies, schools, or other groups?
• Looking ahead, do you have a plan or goal for building on those partnerships or expanding the care you offer with them?
• The celebrations you host are such a bright spot! What do families tell you after those events — how do they feel when they leave?
• Is there a particular story, celebration, or family that has really stuck with you?
• How do you hope those celebrations will grow or change over the next few years?
• What’s one thing you’ve learned from the families you serve that’s changed you personally?
• For our listeners, how can people get involved or support what Bananas Foster is doing?

Chapters

• 0:54 Please tell us the story of how Bananas Foster got started. What was happening in your life that made you say, “We need to do something for foster families”?
• 3:32 What was the biggest challenge in getting things off the ground?
• 5:00 For listeners who might not know you yet, what’s the mission of Bananas Foster?
• 7:41 What are some of the biggest everyday needs you hear about from foster, kinship, or adoptive families? How do you see Bananas Foster stepping into those areas of need?
• 12:21 You talk about celebrating and supporting foster families — can you share what that looks like at a typical Banana Ball game day?
• 15:33 You talk about celebrating and supporting foster families — can you share what that looks like at a typical Banana Ball game day?
• 17:37 Looking ahead, do you have a plan or goal for building on those partnerships or expanding the care you offer with them?
• 22:15 The celebrations you host are such a bright spot! What do families tell you after those events — how do they feel when they leave?
• 23:21 Is there a particular story, celebration, or family that has really stuck with you?
• 24:36 How do you hope those celebrations will grow or change over the next few years?
• 26:57 What’s one thing you’ve learned from the families you serve that’s changed you personally?
• 28:54 For our listeners, how can people get involved or support what Bananas Foster is doing?

Transcript

Please pardon any errors, this is an automated transcript.

Have you heard about the new sports sweeping the country? Do you have banana ball
fever? We sure do here at Creating a Family, and we're so excited to welcome Emily
Cole of the Savannah Bananas and Bananas Foster to the show today. Hello, I'm Tracy
Whitney, and you are listening to Creating a Family, talk about adoption, foster
care, and kinship care. You are in for a treat today. We are joined by Emily Cole,
the co -owner and co -founder of Banana Ball. Emily Cole is proudly married to
Jessie, and they have three awesome kiddos, including two beautiful daughters whom
they fostered and then adopted. Emily and Jesse are raising awareness about the
foster community and its needs through their nonprofit called Banana's Foster. Welcome
to the Creating a Family Podcast, Emily. Thanks so much for having me. What a great
intro. Appreciate that. Oh, thanks. We are very excited to have you with us today.
Let's get right into it and talk about the story of how banana's foster got
started. What was happening in your life at the time that made you say we need to
do something for foster families while we're also still launching this brand new
sport. Yeah, it is funny looking back because it was extremely parallel with the
growth of the company. that's when we decided to start fostering personally. So
crazy, you know, beginning, it was just the need to serve others was the thought.
Originally, the thought was adoption for us. But then when I started learning about
adoption, we learned about foster care. And it was something that both Jesse and I
had kind of been sheltered from and not learned a lot about earlier in our life.
And so Once we read the books and we listened to the podcast, we felt called to
follow the foster care route rather than the adoption route and knowing that this
was not going to be a way to permanently grow our family, but that we were going
to just parent temporarily and walk alongside these families and hopefully reunify the
kids that were in our home. So while that was happening, the company, Fans for
Entertainment, that is the umbrella company for the Savannah Bananas and now Banana
Ball was also taking off. And so it was a very wild time in our life. We were
flying all over the country and then flying home for therapies and visits and just
learning the whole foster care world. And as the platform grew for us personally and
with the bananas, we felt this responsibility. You know, we're out creating joy all
the time, which we're very out of and we're happy to do. But with a larger
platform comes more responsibility, I think, to just do more good in the world. And
what better fit than foster care? You know, it was this thing that was on our
heart. It was this thing that we were currently walking through. And something that
we thought the world hadn't heard a lot about. It's kind of this taboo topic in
society still. There's not a lot out there about it. And so we said, why not? Why
not be the voice for this? You know, you look at the demographics of our games.
It's comprised primarily of families. And so if you look around in the audience,
you're looking at people who could be in foster care situations and you don't know
or you could be looking at the perfect audience to step into this space. And so
after mulling it over for a while, Jesse woke up in the middle of the night one
night with the brilliant name bananas foster and from there there was just no
turning back it was something that we knew we really needed to pour into oh that's
fantastic um aside from the busyness of the pace of doing all of those very big
things all at once what were some of the biggest challenges that you faced in
getting bananas foster off the ground well i think in the beginning we wanted to go
slow enough and make sure that we were really coming into this space and making an
impact. And so we had to educate ourselves. We had to educate our fans. We had to
create the awareness. And fortunately, we had the wherewithal to kind of give
ourselves a runway of stepping into this space. And so we knew in those first
couple of years, we were not going to come in and shake things up. We were not
going to step on people's toes. We really just wanted to aid other groups and we
wanted to just slowly start building our programs and our celebrations. And so for
people who are entrepreneurs and people who are very driven to be high achievers and
to see success, I think one of the challenges was making ourselves slow down and
truly be intentional and impactful on what our organization was going to be. But
looking back, it was, of course, the wisest thing to do because we did not just
come in and flip everything on its head. It has slowly, gradually grown over the
years and, you know, are in a space now that we feel very confident being and are
and are proud of where we are. So that was probably the challenge when we first
started. And so that leads well into the next question for the listeners who aren't
familiar yet with Bananas Foster, what is the mission of your nonprofit organization?
Yeah, so our goal when we created it was to make sure that we were saying aligned
with who we were as an organization. And Banana Ball, Savannah Bananas, we stand for
creating joy in the world and being this positive light and allowing people to just
escape the normal, everyday, hard things that are out there. So when looking at
creating a nonprofit, there's so much hard that we can talk about.
There's negative. There's fundraising. You know, there's a lot of pieces that could
easily go into and be the main focus of a nonprofit. But we made sure that we
were going to stay aligned with who the bananas were at the time. And so we wanted
to make sure it was mostly a positive outlook. And so our first program that we
started was all about just celebrating the people who are already in the foster care
world doing amazing things. So that's our biggest focus right now is celebrating
people who are already making an impact that are everyday heroes that most of the
world has not heard about. Right. And then beyond that, we are, of course, creating
awareness and inspiring others to get involved. That's the whole mission of who we
are and where we want to go. So the celebratory part is the biggest piece of it.
And that is something that we are so honored to do every single game that we have,
every single banana ball game. We've of course grown now and we're not just the
Savannah bananas. We now have a league. There are six teams. And so at every single
banana ball game, we celebrate a local person or family who has made an incredible
impact on the foster care world. Sometimes we're bringing people out onto the field
who have been doing this for 40 years. And, you know, what a thankless job
normally. And we are putting the spotlight on them in front of sometimes stadiums of
70 ,000 people. And we're taking a moment to say, look what this person in your
community is doing. And can we celebrate this person and recognize that they're doing
something that most of us are not even aware is happening. And so that's the
biggest focus for Bananas Foster. And of course, because of that, now we are
bringing attention to this space, but we're doing it in a positive celebratory way.
And so people are in the audience saying, huh, that's something I could do rather
than the scare tactic of going in and saying, oh, The numbers are so bad. The
stories are so horrible. You need to get involved. We need more fundraising dollars.
Our goal is to shine a light on the positive and attract people who want to be
involved because of that. And so when you're working with these families and you're
finding ways to celebrate them, I would imagine that you're also hearing about some
of the needs that they are experiencing in their everyday life. What are some of
those needs that you're hearing about? Yeah, of course. We've been very fortunate to
get to know hundreds of families now. And one of our new goals and our new
missions is to create a database of organizations that are already making an impact,
again, not trying to step on anybody's toes, but we see ourselves as connectors. You
know, we are using our platform and we are shouting from the rooftops about the
things that are going on in the foster care space, but we're hearing about it from
people who are in that space. And we're just trying to connect the needs with a
big audience that we are fortunate to have kind of at our fingertips. And so, yes,
it's everything from, you know, monetary generations to things like goods and filling
foster care closets. Because, of course, when you get a call in the middle of the
night for a newborn and you haven't had a newborn in your home for a decade,
you're not prepared. things like meal trains and just getting involved by mentoring
or being a shoulder to lean on. I mean, there's so many different ways, as you
know, to support the foster care world and people who are in it. We're just trying
to compile all of those ways and all of those organizations and then be the
connector so that when somebody comes to us after a game, inevitably, we've know,
maybe 50 or 100 people who will write to us after each game and say, I was
inspired. I want to do something. Now we're able to connect them to an organization
in their community that fits their needs. You know, we're not naive enough to think
that everybody's going to stand there and raise their hand and say, okay, I've
decided I'm ready to foster tonight. Sign me up. But everybody feels inclined to do
something at a different level. And so if we can be that connector to say, great,
here is a foster care closet, here is a mentorship group, here is an organization
that you can donate to. If we can be that connector, then we feel like we are
going to be able to, you know, push the ball down the field in a successful way
for the foster care space. So you are matching in a sense the needs that you hear
about when you are in a community, celebrating a family, to other organizations in
that community and kind of facilitating some sense of community that maybe they
didn't have before. Well, that's the goal. You know, these organizations are already
doing amazing things in their communities. They might just not have the voice. And
so if we can come into town and say, hey, this is a big need and we're going to
celebrate the people who are already doing great. and guess what? They live right
down the road from you. They're already making an impact. If we get the people's
attention and we can tell them about it, then, you know, we're getting ready to
leave town and head to the next city. But we've now made that connection so that
as we move on and hopefully make an impact in the next community, we've already
connected people, you know, in the last stop. And they're able to get the ball
rolling and get involved in some capacity. And one of the keys to retaining high
-quality foster families is helping them have that sense of community and that
connectedness to others who are interested in doing some aspect of the same work
that they're doing. Because we can't, I can't change a whole system, but I can help
improve the life of one family. Yeah. The statistic of we lose 50 % of foster
families after the first year of being licensed is something that I was taught early
on. And that just sticks with me. And so in a number of different ways,
are we trying to walk alongside of these families so that the burnout, you know,
that churn and burn and the starting over every year with new families is not
something that we see. And hopefully we can see that decrease. Let me interrupt for
just a minute. I hope you're enjoying this conversation with Emily Cole from Bananas
Foster, I sure am. Please consider sharing the link to this episode with a friend.
Word of mouth is the most effective way to get the word out about what Banana's
Foster is doing, but also about what creating a family is doing. When you are on
that podcast platform, please grab the link, but then also take a moment to leave a
rating or a review. The reviews that we get are always very inspiring and
encouraging. It helps us know when we're getting it right. And it's also a great
way to help us raise awareness of the resources and support available to foster
families, adoptive families and kinship families. Thanks so much. And let's go back
to the interview.
So you talk a lot about and you plan for these big celebrations of these foster
families that are doing this good work in their community. Can you tell us a little
bit about what a typical day of bananas foster celebration might look like for that
family? Yeah. Well, first of all, we call them our BFFs, our bananas foster family.
And so the first thing that we do is we actually invite them to a Facebook group
that we have created of all of our past bananas foster families. So all of our
BFFs are in this group and they're able to cheer on the families who are coming
up, you know, the ones who are on deck, the ones who have their celebration in the
next couple of weeks. So they have an expectation and understanding already from
these families who are now community members walking alongside of them. But once the
day actually arrives, they're basically just treated like our VIPs, our very important
bananas of the game. You You know, we bring them in early and they get to have
special meet and greets on the field with the players. And for most instances,
it's families or especially children who have never been in a situation like this
and they're down on the field and they're getting autographs and they're making
TikTok dances with these superstar athletes. And they're just made to feel like
normal kids in a situation that is probably not normal for them.
You know, we might take those things for granted, but so many of these kids do not
get to go to big stadiums and touch the grass and be on the field with the
starting shortstop and be made to feel like they're the most important person in the
stadium. So it really just starts with that connectivity and that exclusiveness and
making them feel special for maybe once in their life. And then it goes on to an
entire night of merchandise and food and drinks and special situations for them.
And then the game starts hours later after they've already had hours of fun. And
they get to come on the field. So at the third inning, every night, we have our
Bananas Foster moment. Our family of the night is celebrated on the field. Once we
tell the crowd a little bit about their story, of course, we have to be respectful
of things that we are not able to say publicly, but we're always able to shine a
light on them in a positive way. And so they run out onto the field with us and
the teams come around them and we do a big group hug. And inevitably, the whole
stadium ends up giving them a standing ovation and crying. And it's just a very
celebratory moment for them. And then they get to enjoy the rest of the game,
either from the dugout or from their seats. their seats. And it's just a really
special experience for them as a family. And normally these families are going
through really hard things. Even if they have, you know, children who have been with
them for a long time or, you know, whatever, there's always going to be trauma.
There's always going to be so many extra appointments and court dates and visits.
And there's just hard things. And so our goal is to just give them a night, a
day, really, where they can just be a family and they can just celebrate and have
joy together. So that's our goal. That's what a BFF day in the life looks like.
And I'm seeing, as I follow you guys on social media, so many more of the
celebrities local to that town where you're visiting, kind of get in on the action,
whether it's that town's sports team. Like, I'm a Philly girl. So we noticed when
you guys were here in September that there was some Phillies on the field enjoying
the excitement. What kind of local partnerships do you have going into those cities?
Do you work with churches or other faith groups? Do you work with other nonprofits
to kind of pave the way and get the day kind of set up and rolling? Yeah. So
every city is a little bit different because our contacts in every city are a
little bit different. You know, sometimes we're working with the local government
agencies, sometimes we're working with private agencies, but all of our foster
families are, of course, you know, nominated or vetted from the people that they're
licensed through or the organizations that they work with. And so it starts there.
It starts with the communication months ahead of time where we are connecting with
the local organizations on who should we celebrate and why should we celebrate them?
Why are they superheroes? Tell us their story. And so it starts then. And the
conversation just continues and it's based on how much each community wants to get
involved. I mean, is what you were talking about. There are often celebrities who
come in and they say, hey, banana ball is awesome. And yes, I want a chance to
play or I want a chance to perform on the field or whatever it might be. But I
also have a heart for children or I I grew up in foster care, you know, whatever
the connection is, and they want to do something special. So, again, depends on the
situation, the city, the celebrity, the community, but there is always something or
somebody who will go above and beyond to make it an extra special day for these
families. And each one has a unique experience, which I think is special too. Yeah.
I love watching the celebration I, they just don't get old for me at all.
Me either. They're also special. Yeah. So looking ahead to the future of bananas
foster, do you have specific goals or dreams that we're going to start to see play
out in the future of the bananas foster organization? Yeah. You know, when we first
started, it was how do we elevate the awareness of foster care to the point where
there is not a child waiting for a home. And it's a big goal that's a big
grandiose thought and plan. But we feel like we are equipped to be part of the
change here. You know, again, we are so fortunate to have the following and the
fandom that we do with our fans. We've got four and people on a wait list right
now trying to get tickets for next year. Why could we not create a wait list for
families who are waiting to help children? If we had families waiting in the wings
and they're just there, they're ready so that when a child comes into care, if that
child is Spanish speaking, or that child needs to be in a home with a therapy pet
or that child needs to be in a home where they're the only child. Whatever the
situation is, if we had families waiting in the wings on this wait list and the
agencies were able to go and kind of scan a list and say, this would be the best
fit for this child, oh my gosh, I cannot even imagine how much trauma we would
because now we're not, you know, disrupting placements and we're not moving kids
around and we're not splitting up sibling sets and all of the other things that
come out of, you know, it's already traumatic enough being pulled from your home and
your family, but there's so many other little traumas that happen once you're in
foster care. And if we could have the right families waiting to match with a child
who comes into care and be the right family, and they are able to pour into just
that child and walk alongside of them for the years that it takes to reunify or
whatever their case ends up being, we just feel like the whole foster care community
will be stronger because of that. So that is the big goal. The big goal is to
create so much demand, so much, you know, such a wait list of families that we are
equipped to take care of the children that come into care in the right way. That's
the big goal. And on that list, lists of parents who are willing to do respite
care for the foster parents who need it to keep doing the work they're doing,
respite care is such a huge need. And it's a relatively straightforward path to,
yeah, I'll take a kid for the weekend so that you can get away refreshed or, you
know, take the break that you need. It's, yeah, we talk a lot internally about how
to boost the awareness that respite care is kind of a lower cost investment.
Yes. With a big reward. Yes. We talk about that all the time. I have people who
come up to me at every game and they're saying, I just don't know. I just don't
know if I can do it. And respite care is something that I always encourage. You
know, it's like, hey, I don't know if I can commit for a long -term placement for
two or three years because often it ends up being that long. And I totally
understand that. But respic care is actually really easy to offer. I mean, you know
what weekends you're available or you know, you know, what you can handle in your
home. And it's often planned ahead of time and you get to communicate with the
foster families. And it's actually a very easy way to get involved. There's a start
and an end, and it's kind of a nice, I like that little runway into the world and
making a huge difference for a kid. It is, absolutely.
I want to break in one more time and say thank you to the Jockey Being Family
Foundation. They are partnering with us to offer you 15 free courses at Bitley slash
JVF support. That's BIT .L .L .Y slash JBF support.
These courses are all designed to strengthen your family and support you as you are
raising kids through the foster system, through adoption, or through relative care.
You can explore topics like helping kids regulate big emotions, how to talk to kids
about adoption, and how adoption or fostering impacts the kids already in your home.
Again, The link is b .it .l .ly slash jbf support.
And thanks so much for listening. Let's go back to our interview now. What do you
hear from the families after they've had this big, beautiful day of being celebrated
and being pampered and the kids getting to just, you know, be a typical kid and
play on the field and hang out with the hot shots? What are you hearing from
families after the fact. Yeah, it's, it's mostly just gratitude, which of course
fills our cup and reminds us that that's, that's all they want. That's all they
need is to just be thanked and appreciated and seen. So many people in the foster
care world are just not seen, you know, from the social workers to the parents to
the kids themselves. And so the more that we can make them feel seen and
appreciated, again, I think we'll go back into them being involved longer, and that
will help that statistic of the churn and burn of people quitting, whether it's
social workers or families. You know, if we can keep people in that space doing
good work for longer, then we will have a great impact. And so when they have that
gratitude for us and just saying, thank you for allowing our family to have this
gift of time together, that always fills of our cup to keep going. You have a
particular story or family or celebration experience that has really stuck with you?
Oh my gosh. There are so many. It's probably hard to pick one. Well, each one is
different. Let's put a face to it, though. Yeah. I've been fortunate to be able to
recognize a few different military families. And gosh, when you put into perspective
that not only is one of the parents overseas fighting for our country,
but the other one is at home, yes, holding down the floor, but they're also a
foster parent. I mean, it just blows my mind what some of these families go
through. And so there have been a few foster families that are active duty military.
And those ones really stick out to me because, man, those people need the
appreciation more than anybody. I mean, they're getting it from both sides, the
hardships that they walk through on the military front and on the foster care front.
And so those ones are always really special to us. And the crowd, of course, eats
that up too, because how can you not just be the biggest fan of an active duty
military member and a foster parent? And so those ones always feel really special
that we're able to recognize those people. And how do you hope that your
celebrations will grow or I find it hard to say improve because they all seem so
amazing now? But where are you looking for them to grow in, you know, a couple
years down the road? Yeah. Well, it's, it's a great thought process for us because
when we did start, it was just the bananas and it was a smaller thing. And now we
will be doing three celebrations every, well, more than three, but we will be
celebrating in three cities every weekend next year because we will have two teams
in one direction, two teams in another direction and two teams in another direction.
And because we are the official nonprofit of banana ball, we will be represented at
every game. And so, yes, these are growing and they are more because every weekend
we're in three cities and there's at least two, sometimes three games every weekend
in that city. And so, you know, you could be talking about 10 to 12 celebrations a
weekend. And so it's really important for us to be able to continue to make those
unique experiences for them. We're growing as a nonprofit.
We're small still, but we're growing so that we can give so much intentionality to
each of those. And We're creating more fun little things for them. We've started a
fun project with a book train. So if we have a family that comes out on Thursday
night and they get celebrated, they tell us what their favorite family book is. And
we get that as an organization and we bring it to them on Thursday. And they get
to write an inspiring note in there to our Friday night family. And we do the same
thing with our Friday night family. And we pass on these books to families. And so,
again, having that encouragement from somebody who's walking the same path as you has
been really impactful, we see people open up the books and just read the message
and cry and just say, you have no idea how much this specific message means to me.
And then, of course, they get to stay connected in our BFF community on Facebook.
And so I think the intentionality of continuing to make these people feel special
and unique and heard, even as we're growing and doing this on bigger platforms and
doing it multiple times in one night, you know, in three different cities. That will
be our goal is to just continue to bring the exclusiveness to each person, even
though it's growing so much and it's not exclusive. What's one thing that you've
learned from these families that you're serving every day that's changed you? Oh,
man. I think foster care in general has just taught me that we are all stronger
than we give ourselves credit for. There are so many families.
I'll, I bet every single weekend, I talk to a family who just says, you know,
we weren't going to say yes, or we weren't even qualified for this age group, or
we didn't have enough open beds, but, but, but we said yes, but we got the waiver
to have another person so that we can keep sibling groups together. And in every
situation, of course, they've gone through hard things, but they say it's worth it.
Look at these civillies together or look at them thriving or look at how their
health has improved. And so that's a message that we believe. I mean, most of us
are foster parents who work in the organization. And It's just a message that we
pass on to everybody who says they want to get involved, but they're too scared or
they're afraid of getting attached. It's, oh, you're so much stronger than you give
yourself credit for. And that's what we're supposed to be doing. Yeah, get attached.
Get attached. Exactly. It's hard on us, but I was actually speaking to a therapist
this morning about something else. And she said healing comes in the hard places.
And the healing that comes for these kids, for these foster parents, for the birth
families that they're supporting and walking alongside of when we can walk through.
And when they are walking through that hard, knowing they're not alone in it, I
would imagine that that Facebook community that you have of all of the current and
former BFFs is probably such a source of connectedness for those families because
they know that they're seen and heard and that they're not alone. Yeah, absolutely.
That's fantastic. So let's kind of put a practical set of feet to this,
make it a little practical. If people are listening and very curious about bananas
foster or about fostering in general, what can they do to get involved or support
what you guys are doing? Yeah. So our website is bananasfoster .org. That's the best
way to get involved. We're also very active on social, especially Instagram. But we
are compiling a list of organizations that we believe are authentic and could be
supported across the country. And so again, we're that connector. And so we are the
sounding board. We are the person to help give direction. and we will help put
anybody in contact with whatever sort of organization they're looking to get involved
in. So people come to us and just say, I want to help or I want to be involved,
but I don't know where to start. We are a good starting point because we can help
point them in the right direction after we get to know them and their situation and
how they want to help. We will have a plethora of ideas and ways for them to get
involved once they share with us their thoughts. And is there opportunity to serve
on the day of when Banana Ball is in town? Yeah, we haven't done that yet.
But we are starting to grow our program called Potassium Care Baskets, which is
something that we send out to foster families. So this could be somebody who is
newly licensed last week, or it could be somebody who has been going through it and
they are in the trenches now and they've been in it for years. But whenever we
hear about other foster families who we are not necessarily celebrating at a game,
we try to send them potassium care baskets. And it's just little pick -me -ups. It's
gift cards and letters of encouragement and sometimes some swag from some of our
teams or we try to help your Amazon wish lists when somebody comes into a home and
the family wasn't prepared. So all of those different little things that we can just
help a family with, those are potassium care baskets. And so we are looking at
putting together like packing days for our care baskets. And so volunteers would
maybe come in and help us pack those special things or write notes to kids and
send those out. So that might be our next volunteer opportunity, but still putting
together details on that. Currently, when we get to the stadium, our staff takes
care of everything. So the players are super involved. Our cast is super involved.
And we're the ones that are kind of hosting them for the day. So that's covered.
That's awesome. Well, we are proud to be partners with Bananas Foster and the
raising awareness of and the celebrations of Foster families in the communities where
banana ball gets played. If you are interested in learning more about how to get
involved, go to bananas foster .org and check out their website and keep an eye open
for opportunities to volunteer if they're coming through your town or whatever else
you can do. Emily, thank you for your time. Thank you for your enthusiasm and as
co -laborers in this field of supporting and strengthening foster families,
thank you for everything that you guys do to raise awareness and to support these
families. Thank you so much for what you're doing. It takes a village. Yep, yep.
Glad to be part of the village with you. Absolutely.