Rachel Webb is the founder and Executive Director of Fostering Together Gulf Coast. Originally a Texas native, Rachel graduated with a business degree from Texas A&M University in 2005 and moved to Birmingham to begin a job as an Event Coordinator with Student Life Camps. Alabama quickly became home as she found the love of her life and began a family. After having two children of their own, Rachel and her husband Stephen became foster parents in 2013 with the hope of providing a safe, loving home to children in need within their community.
While their intentions were noble, it only took a few months of fostering to realize this calling required much more than good intentions. Foster care was a whole new world of parenting traumatized children while also having to navigate the child welfare system, the juvenile court system, and families in crisis. It would have been easy to become discouraged by the overwhelming needs of the kids and the dismal lack of resources available. But rather than give up, Rachel sought out ways to make things better. Fostering Together Gulf Coast was born out of this desire to help children in foster care and to provide support to the families who have taken up the charge to care for them.
Begun in 2019, Fostering Together Gulf Coast now has foster care resource centers located in Mobile and Spanish Fort that help to meet the needs of children as they come into foster care and also provides ongoing parent trainings, support groups, and fun family events to foster families. Each month over over 3,000 pieces of clothing, toiletries, school uniforms, birthday presents, toys, and more are passed along to these kids and families. The organization is also a bridge for the community to get involved in helping with foster care by donating clothing, sponsoring Easter baskets and Christmas gifts, volunteering at the centers, and providing financial support. It really does take a village to raise a child, and together we’re making a big impact in the foster care community where we live.