Meet Candace Baier of Harper’s Warrior Fund

Today we’d like to introduce you to Candace Baier

Hi Candace, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’m excited to share my new local nonprofit organization with our Kansas City community. Harper’s Warrior Fund was created to honor my son Harper, and to keep his name and legacy alive while supporting our Kansas City youth in foster care. My son had complex medical challenges that required me to be his advocate every day of his precious life. Because I enjoy advocacy so much, I decided to become a CASA, or a court appointed special advocate, for Jackson County. It was through this volunteer experience that I realized how much the foster care system is failing children. There are so many needs that are not being met for each individual child when they are in foster care. One of my first cases was with a little boy who had Autism. His foster parents felt that he needed extra occupational therapy for his special needs to be met. Despite a court order, no funding was found for this private pay therapy so the foster parents were forced to pay out of their pocket in order to get this therapy for their foster child. This was not right! The more I researched this, the more I discovered how many resources and services were not covered and foster children were not getting what they needed in order to be successful while navigating the foster care system. There are so many services and so many resources that are needed, but there is no funding. Harper’s Fund closes the gap. Our nonprofit is supporting children in foster care by fulfilling each individual need that is not covered by a court order, Medicaid, or an IEP/504 plan. These needs vary from educational, therapeutic, medical, or even extracurricular. We have a long list of what we cover and that list continues to grow as the various non funded needs of children in foster care are identified.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
This organization has definitely been challenging to get started. For starters, I was, and still am, grieving the loss of my incredible son while attempting to get everything organized and running smoothly. Grief is debilitating and looks different every day so definitely not a great addition to the challenges of starting a business. Ha! For anyone that is familiar with getting a 501c3 nonprofit organization off the ground and running, it takes a lot of patience and ALOT of paperwork. After successfully finishing the paperwork, I had to decide on a payment platform to accept donations. My initial choice for payment processing proved to be frustrating and not a good fit so I had to switch platforms. Acquiring a business account is also quite involved. After I finally had everything organized, it was time to start raising funds for my organization. That is still a challenge to this day due to this organization being so new. Only a handful of people have heard of Harper’s Warrior Fund. My hope is to acquire some big donors in the near future to ensure we will always be able to fulfill any need no matter the cost.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Harper’s Warrior Fund ?
Harper’s Warrior Fund in a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We specialize in social service, more specifically supporting youth in foster care. Our organization was founded by myself, a Kansas City local mother, and right now our organization serves foster children in the greater Kansas City metropolitan area, which includes Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties. We are proud to fund any service or any resource needed for a local child in foster care that is not covered by Medicaid, a court order, or an educational plan (504/IEP). You can find out more and contact us at Harpersfund.org

How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
People can work with us and collaborate with us by forming partnerships. We are actively looking to partner with vendors and professionals that provide the services and resources that we need to cover for children in foster care. If we get a request for a specific need or resource, we would love to have a “go to” partner to fulfill the need every time we get a request. For example, if a child needs therapy, we would love to have a service provider to automatically call to fulfill this need instead of having to call around to get hourly quotes, inquire about availability for services, etc. People can support our local nonprofit by donating funds to our organization. We currently cover up to $500 per child per calendar year due to limited financial resources. We hope to increase that amount as soon as possible so that we can cover any need at any time for any child in foster care in Kansas City.

If you are a local CASA employee or a local social worker, we can work with you and help support the children on your caseload by going to Harpersfund.org and submitting a request. We are able to fulfill requests within 10 business days as long as the service or resource has been denied by Medicaid or there is no funding available despite a court order or an educational plan. You can find a complete list of what is covered on our website.

We are having our first annual charity golf tournament on Sunday, October 13th at Shamrock Hills golf course. All proceeds go to Harper’s Warrior Fund and we are in need of support in the form of sponsors and donations. We need players too! We are very thankful for any support we receive by our local Kansas City community.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.harpersfund.org/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/harperswarriorfund?igsh=dTJnZGd3bzV1NnV5&utm_source=qr
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61556686336466&mibextid=JRoKGi