Jun. 6—Making sure children feel cared for, valued and empowered during what can sometimes feel like an unsteady time in their lives.

That’s the message behind Bravely Me Boutique, a new shop exclusively for foster and kinship families that recently opened inside Maple Grove Community Church on the city’s southwest side.

The free boutique — complete with rows of new community-donated items from clothing and toys to toiletries and school supplies — is the brainchild of Laura and Shane Martin with the local nonprofit organization Foster the Need.

The Tribune reached out to the Martins recently to talk about their new venture a few hours before a grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony last week.

And for the couple, the boutique is more than just the tangible items inside.

It’s also about giving the foster and kinship families that come through its doors, especially the children, a sense of hope and peace.

“Some of these kids have never been inside a Walmart or a Target,” Laura Martin said. “So for them to be able to come in and see a space that is beautiful and where they can feel like they’re the only person that matters at the time, that’s huge. They have control over this one moment in their life, in a time where they feel there is no control in their life.”

In other words, the children can be themselves, she noted.

They can be brave, like the shop’s name.

“Shane and I sat around many nights and thought over what we wanted the image and vision of our space to be,” Martin said. “And the word ‘brave’ really stuck out to us because these kids have been through everything, and they continue to wake up in the morning and keep going. These kids are doing their lives every day in the unknown, in a space where they don’t know what’s going to happen next.

“And we just continue to see them rise above that and be brave,” she added. “So the name just fits perfectly. … They may not be able to have control over what they choose for themselves for the rest of their lives, but for a moment, they can feel bravely themselves and be loved for it.”

Matt Daleo is a clinical director at The Villages, one of Indiana’s largest not-for-profit child and family services agencies, and he also attended the ribbon cutting ceremony.

“I think this place is a huge need in the community because some children come to foster situations with absolutely nothing,” he said, “or they come from neglected homes with no bags or anything. But they can come here and get all their needs met for maybe the first time in their lives, and it’s truly an amazing thing.”

Along with providing children in foster or kinship care the opportunity to feel empowered, Martin said she also hopes Bravely Me Boutique will be a good resource for foster or kinship parents and guardians to “get on their feet” as they begin the foster process.

“It’s a dream of ours that this boutique will be a resource throughout the duration of a child’s stay with a family,” Martin said, “not just at the beginning.”

Foster and kinship families can visit Bravely Me Boutique by setting up individual appointments by privately messaging the boutique’s Facebook page, and Martin said they’ve already had a family come through the shop.

And while she admits that her husband and she were the ones who came up with the idea, the boutique wouldn’t be successful without the support of the Howard County community.

“Our community has been so substantial and influential in the ability for us to run this boutique,” Martin said. “We’ve had companies who will donate monetarily. We’ve had companies who will go out and buy a whole bunch of clearance items and donate those. We have churches that we’re partnering with. Schools have done drives for us before and donated that way. Every group in the community that we’ve talked to has come on board and been such an important part of what we’re doing.”

Because it really does take a village to raise a child, she noted, acknowledging that some of the strongest villagers are the foster and kinship families themselves.

“Parents who decide that they want to foster or take care of their kinship children are heroes,” Martin said. “They’re superheroes, and the kids that come into these families are superheroes, too. We can’t delete all of the problems for these kids. We can’t clear the path for everyone, but we can be a small part of that.”

And through something as simple as the Bravely Me Boutique, Martin said she hopes the public will continue to see how lifechanging foster care can really be.

“These kids are in our classrooms, they’re in our churches, they’re in our backyards, and they’re part of our families,” she said. “I think that sometimes we overlook things that aren’t right in our faces. We overlook things that are not part of our daily routine. So it’s our dream that people would start to see the needs, start to fill those needs and see these kids as the valued treasures that they are.”