Since 2012, With Love has supported foster families in Tigard and across the Portland metro area by collecting and distributing large quantities of donated clothing, car seats, strollers, diapers, bottles and toys for babies and toddlers in foster care.
The nonprofit first operated out of With Love founder Allie Roth’s living room and has since grown into an enterprise working from a four-room warehouse with a team of over 75 volunteers.
“She (Roth) was a teacher in the Beaverton School District and realized that there were children who were in the classrooms who were in foster care who had access to some of the resources in the school district, but the little ones, the babies…didn’t really have that,” said With Love Executive Director Vennisa Gomez-Gerberg. “Right now we’re actually serving an average of 131 children per month. That’s gone up quite a bit over the last couple of years. And we’ve had four months this year already, where we’ve gone over 150.”
Gomez-Gerberg, who has been with With Love since 2023, told Tigard Life that the nonprofit routinely works with more families and has seen an uptick in both foster families getting in touch with them and individuals donating items.
“It’s really hard to ask for help,” Gomez-Gerberg said. “And we’ve worked really hard to make sure that they (foster families) have that clarity on what we do have available, and to see them using it feels really good.”
With Love’s warehouse is divided into four large rooms, which Gomez-Gerberg referred to as “bays.” Clothing, toys, highchairs and cribs, old and new, are siphoned through each bay, which are all overseen by different groups of volunteers who clean, organize and “shop for” the items that foster families request.
“Now we’ve grown into all four bays,” Gomez-Gerberg said. “So it’s 6,500 square feet and every bay serves a purpose. Everything in here is new or like new, and if it’s not new, it’s been laundered by volunteers.”
Gomez-Gerberg said that in addition to the team of 75 primary volunteers who help the nonprofit organize, sort through and deliver supplies, they also have over 1,000 volunteers who come in to help with additional donation sorting.
Foster families, who are part of Oregon and Southwest Washington’s foster care system, can fill out request forms on With Love’s website and outline exactly what supplies they need for their kids, ages zero to six. The nonprofit then does its best to package all the requested items.
“They don’t realize how much they’re actually going to get when they receive the delivery, or they come, and they’re like, ‘Holy moly!’” Gomez-Gerberg said. “We know the resources in more rural communities are slim, and this is such a great spot for the Portland metro area that has an abundance that we get to bless, really, the entire state.”
Gomez-Gerberg said that With Love had been trying to collaborate with smaller service providers in the region and had recently been sharing supplies with a smaller Vancouver-based nonprofit called Cloth and Foster.
On Oct. 23, the warehouse had two large orders ready for families in Clatskanie and Mulino.
While wiping down a recently donated booster seat, With Love Family Support Specialist Chad Nagel told Tigard Life that his favorite part of his job was supporting the work of foster parents in the region.
“Three times a week families will stop by to pick up their items, and I get to meet them, and that’s just, it’s really cool because they’re genuinely amazing people,” Nagel said. “You see so much of the good in people here, and I love that.”
Gomez-Gerberg said that families routinely reuse With Love’s services and order additional items as children get older.
For the holiday season, With Love is accepting donations of toys, books and games until Dec. 4 and is also holding a “Season of Giving” fundraiser with a goal of $205,000. Gomez-Gerberg said they most need boys’ clothing ranging from infants to eight-year-olds, as well as snowsuits and winter coats.
With Love accepts clothing and accessory donations at 14555 SW 74th Ave on Wednesdays and Fridays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Additional donation information is available at withloveoregon.org.
