This month in action
July brings a mix of movement, preparation, and perspective across our work. As children get ready for a new school year, our community is stepping in to make sure they have what they need to start strong. At the same time, we are seeing advocacy in action in different forms, from a cross-country bike ride raising awareness for youth, to a story that reflects how systems and support come together around a child’s experience.
This month’s updates highlight what it looks like when people show up in different ways, through supplies, through service, and through sharing stories that help others better understand the work behind the scenes.
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Help children start the school year ready to learn
The VOICES back to school drive is underway, and we still need your help! Every year, VOICES provides backpacks filled with all of the essential school supplies, giving them the tools they need to start the school year with confidence. As the new school year approaches, we still need your help to fill backpacks for these children.
Whether you donate school supplies or simply share our drive with your inner circle, you can help make a difference. As a community, we can help ensure every child served by a CASA volunteer starts the school year prepared and ready to learn. If you’ve already supported our drive, thank you!
If you want to make a difference right away, click the link below to shop our Amazon list. Supplies will be shipped directly to the VOICES office where they will be used for this school year.
My CASA journey
Staying close when it’s hot out
Summer in Arizona means getting creative about staying cool, and connection finds a way no matter the temperature. For a CASA volunteer and their appointed youth, the season often moves indoors and slows down. An afternoon at the library, a matinee movie in a cool theater, or a quiet hour over a board game while the heat passes outside.
Through the generosity of our supporters, VOICES provides gift cards for outings like these, so the focus can stay on connection, not the activity. That is what summer really offers: a familiar face that returns when the calendar empties out, someone who has learned what makes a particular child light up.
Week after week, that return is what a child remembers. Summer slows down, but connection does not. What might change for a child who knows someone is paying attention all summer?
Want to make a difference in your community?
If this story speaks to you come join us at our next information session, and learn what it really means to become a CASA Volunteer.
In focus
The heart of our community
There are people who support a mission — and then there are people who are the mission. Victoria Strayer is the latter.
As Co-Founder, former Board President, Child Welfare Advocacy Director and most importantly, CASA volunteer, Victoria has poured her heart and unwavering commitment into every corner of Voices for CASA Children. Her care, dedication, and vision are woven into every child served, every volunteer supported, and every life changed. Victoria didn’t just help build VOICES — she helped lay the foundation upon which every child we serve stands today.
Victoria’s journey began where it matters most — as a CASA volunteer herself, sitting alongside children living in foster care and fighting for their best interests in court. That experience became the lens through which she led and the reminder that at the center of everything we do is a child who needs a champion. For Victoria, it has always been about the children. Always.
As Victoria transitions to the Board of Directors this month, we want her to know that the gratitude we feel cannot be captured in words. Thank you for co-founding something extraordinary, for leading with grace and an open heart, and for never losing sight of why this work matters.
Victoria — you are, and always will be, the heart of our community.
Community voice
Riding for those who stand by Arizona’s most vulnerable children
On an average workday, before most of us are at our desks in the morning, Andy Brinkman has already biked more than 40 miles.
That kind of commitment tells you everything you need to know about how Stableford Capital’s CEO and Founder approaches the things he cares about — and this summer, what he cares about is riding 391 miles across Iowa for the children of Maricopa County.
This July 18-25, Andy and the Stableford team will take on RAGBRAI LIII, the legendary weeklong bike ride across Iowa, in support of Voices for CASA Children. What started as a cycling challenge has grown into something much bigger — a team effort, a community effort, and a reflection of what it looks like when people use the things they love to do real good in the world.
Logging over 200 miles a week in training, Andy is all in. Early mornings, long miles, tired legs — and he wouldn’t have it any other way. The team has already raised approximately $25,000.
“I want to support the volunteers who stand by the children in our community in a meaningful way,” Andy says. “And if riding nearly 400 miles across Iowa inspires even one more person to get involved and do the same — then every mile is worth it.”
100% of donations go directly to supporting the Voices for CASA Children mission.
Education
The right to stay at the same school
For a child who has been removed from their home, and is now living in foster care, a change in placement over the summer can mean a new neighborhood, a new district, and the prospect of starting over at an unfamiliar school just as classes resume.
Here is something you may not know: federal law protects against exactly that. Under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), a child living in foster care has the right to remain in their school of origin (the school they were already attending) even if they are placed in a different foster home across town or into another district. Whether a child stays or changes schools is decided through a Best-Interest Determination, focused on what is right for that particular student. If the child stays, the law requires that transportation be arranged so they can keep attending. And if the child does move to a new school, it guarantees immediate enrollment, so a student is never turned away for missing paperwork.
The goal is stability: a familiar classroom, the same teacher, the same friends, while so much else is in flux.
That stability is not a small thing. Children living in foster care change schools far more often than their peers, and every move costs children to lose ground, both academically and in the relationships that make a place feel like theirs. Keeping a student at the same school protects friendships, routines, and progress that would otherwise be lost with each transition.
This is where a CASA volunteer turns a “legal right” into a reality. An advocate who understands these protections can ask the questions that matter when a placement changes: Can this child stay at their current school? Has transportation been arranged? Is enrollment moving forward without delay?
Protections like these are easy to lose track of in a busy system. Often it is a CASA who makes sure a child actually benefits from these rights.