Parents needed during National Foster Care Month

(WJBK) - May is National Foster Care month, and the need has never been greater here in Michigan. In Michigan, more than 14,000 children are placed in foster care each year. In Detroit, more than 2,500 children are in the foster system. Those thousands of children need love, nurture and even the basic things like food, clothes and a place to live.

Unfortunately, there is an incredible shortage of foster parents and caregivers. The Children's Center provides urgent foster care services for more than 200 children daily, and is helping fight the foster parent shortage in Detroit.

If you'd like to help but aren't able to become a foster parent, you can help still by providing donations to The Children's Center, or you can provide a "holiday home" to children in foster care.

For more information on how you can help, you can hear from Shereen Allen-Youngblood from the center. You can also visit www.thechildrenscenter.com or call (313) 2662-1119.

The center is also having an orientation Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. at their main campus, located at 79 Alexandrine West in Detroit.