When a child comes into foster care at all hours of the day and night, or their foster placement changes, they often spend time waiting in the offices of the Department of Social Services until their next placement is ready. While the professionals do their best to find suitable placement, typically these kids are sitting at a conference table or cubicle while supervised by their caseworker and sleeping on an air bed on the floor if necessary. Lily Pad creates a living room-like setting for children awaiting placement and gives them a place to comfortably rest, play games, do homework, spend the night if needed and distract themselves from the difficulties of their everyday life.

Lily Pad is working on one space at a time to meet the needs of each individual office and the children they serve. The rooms often include a TV, gaming system, books, Chromebooks, beds or couches that pull out into beds, sensory bins, desks, dining tables, and age-appropriate toys. Soft, clean linens are provided in each space as well. Lily Pads are funded and furnished by generous volunteers and donors nationwide.

Lily Pad has now opened 17 Lily Pad spaces in South Carolina and hopes to build a Lily Pad in all 46 counties in South Carolina over the next few years.

Ben and Jenni Tice became foster parents in 2012 and have a biological daughter and adopted two brothers through the foster care system. In 2019, they received a call about a newborn baby girl that needed a temporary foster home. With Jenni’s labor and delivery nurse background, they were asked to take her until an adoptive home could be established. When 2020 and Covid hit, like the rest of the world, they were on lockdown in their home. During this lockdown, their hearts grew to love this baby girl more and more, and a desire grew to be her adoptive family rather than move her to a different adoptive family. Twenty months into having her in their home with a plan of adoption, the Department of Social Services changed her plan to reunify with her biological mother. Ben and Jenni know very well that the goal of foster care is reunification, still their hearts were broken that this baby girl would be moving. At the same time, they were happy she would be with her biological family and siblings. Their grief was still very present, even with the understanding that God had clearly shown the direction he wanted for her life. After 29 months of raising Lily as their own, she moved in January of 2022.

This was a time of reflection for Ben and Jenni to determine if foster care was something they would continue doing in their current role or if they could expand their reach. They agreed to a weekend placement of a 15-year-old girl. This was their first time taking in a teenager. Ashlyn shared that she had been in and out of foster care since she was young. She was abused in her biological family and adopted, with her younger sister, into a different family at the age of ten. Ashlyn then suffered abuse at the hands of her adoptive family. This is the reason Ashlyn came to their home. Most recently, she had been separated from her sister, questioned by police, and then brought to the DSS office, where she was left to wait in a cubicle with her caseworker. She fell asleep in an office chair out of exhaustion. She awoke to phone calls from families rejecting her placement, talk of being separated from her sister, and the possibility of group homes. This was the moment Jenni realized she wanted to do something better than a cubicle for these children.

Lily Pad - A Soft Place to Land was established in March 2022 as a 501c3 nonprofit organization. Our organization remodels spaces within the Department of Social Services offices so that when the children come into care or are in the office for any reason, they have a specific place just for them with all the comforts of a home. Lily Pad is eliminating air beds and including a monitoring system so caseworkers can take their calls outside the room and the children do not have to be re-traumatized with rejection phone calls or hearing their story re-told.

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All children need a nurturing and supportive family and community to enable them to achieve their full potential. For vulnerable children who are exposed to child abuse and neglect, we need to ensure they are protected and supported so they can have the best chance in life. That protection and support starts with a comfortable space to rest and unwind during an uncertain time.

One of the scariest times for a child in foster care is when they are first removed from their own home and waiting in an office for placement in a new home. A Lily Pad space can provide safety throughout those first hours and even days.

Did you know there are approximately 3,800 children in foster care in South Carolina? You can help them by supporting Lily Pad’s work throughout the state!

Lily Pad is funded through local partnership, grants, and private donors.

State Director Michael Leach has given us the green light to work our way through each county in South Carolina. We began by starting in the Upstate Region of SC and have gradually moved to the Midlands Region. We will continue into the PeeDee and Lowcountry areas as well. There is some flexibility as churches or organizations fundraise for the DSS office in their county to have a Lily Pad or when an office is preparing to move buildings and we wait until they are settled to begin the process to bring them a Lily Pad.

Once the county has been selected we begin the process with a site visit (either in person or virtual). We ask what age kids they typically serve, what needs they have and determine what room or space they have available in the office for the Lily Pad. Together with the DSS representative we select an installation date for the room to be assembled. We take photos and measurements of the space, determine what the building management will allow and then pass all of that information on to Cara Grubb who puts together a design plan. She makes selections for each room based on their needs and creates a registry or places the order and ships the items directly to the DSS office. The Lily Pad team and volunteers go to the office on the agreed upon installation date to paint, assemble furniture and complete the Lily Pad. We take photos and video of each space and do a reveal to any available staff if possible. Our desire is to have a local volunteer to maintain each Lily Pad after installation.

Each Lily Pad costs approximately $10,000 to purchase and install all of the necessary items.

We work very closely with South Carolina’s Department of Social Services and its leadership at the state and local levels, and we’re grateful for their partnership and support!

Prior to opening up a Lily Pad, we meet with each local office to determine their needs and identify what a Lily Pad space should look like for their community. Every Lily Pad is beautifully and thoughtfully designed with each individual office's needs in mind.

Thank you for your interest in partnering with us! We’re currently exploring the best way to grow our work and continue supporting children in foster care around the United States.

Right now, the best way to stay in touch is to visit our website to sign up for our email newsletter and join our community on social media. When we’re able to grow our presence in other states, we’ll share the news there!

There are several ways you can get involved with our work:

Donate: Thank you for your interest in supporting our work through your financial donations! All donations are tax deductible. Your donation provides comfort & restores a sense of security to children in foster care. All donations go directly towards expenses for installations and operations of Lily Pad. Click the “donate” button on our website or fill out this form to make a secure and tax-deductible donation. Our current goal is to install a Lily Pad space in every County in South Carolina.

Sign up for our email newsletter: Scroll down to the bottom of the homepage to sign up for our monthly email newsletter where we share encouraging stories of our work across South Carolina.

Follow us on social media: Join our online community, learn more about the foster care community, and explore some of our beautiful Lily Pad spaces by following us on Instagram and Facebook.

Volunteer: In SC and across the country, children in foster care are often spending their day, and sometimes their night, in social services offices, waiting for temporary placement in a foster group or home, reunification with biological family members or a permanent placement in an adoptive family. They often sleep on air mattresses and have very little options for relaxation, rest or entertainment. Lily Pad’s hope is to provide safe, comfortable and familiar living spaces for these children to relax during an uncertain time in their lives. We depend on volunteers and generous donations to make this happen!