Local Hero Spotlight: Tim Lindow
Tim recently joined Makpar this May as a Systems Administrator in our IT department. He has done incredible work with Collaborative Foster Care as a foster parent and charity runner. His passion for bettering the lives of foster children is an inspiration to us all. Makpar is very proud to spotlight him this month as our local hero!
Get to know him better with this Q&A:
How do your own values align with the Makpar core value of "Uplifting Community"?
“As a foster parent, what I do is like a microcosm of uplifting communities. It is serving a large group of unseen people, but then it shrinks down to individual lives. At a micro-level, taking in a child, depending on how scary their background story was, is really challenging. It’s a huge commitment that no one is going to see how big it is or how intense it is on your personal life. You are basically volunteering yourself to sit with these kids through their abuse and trauma and help them to have some sort of normal life. In reference to uplifting communities, a lot of being a foster parent is giving them a model, showing them consistency, and showing them, for lack of a better term, how live.”
What is the most rewarding/your favorite part of working with Collaborative Foster Care?
“I’ve met a lot of great people. This experience has done a lot to shape my wife and I as much as we shape the kids. We have seen the value of all these crazy different experiences. You never know what ethnicity of a child you are going to get, and you learn certain things about the way society treats them. As you start to love these kids you start to think what their future will look like and how we can change society. This informs your viewpoint on life because they are not abstract concepts anymore. It teaches you to be inclusive through experiencing it.”
“We’ve seen what has gone in the world the past few years—and how bad it is. With all these big news stories with all the bad stuff going on. But there are really good things going on, like the changes we see in these kids. That stuff is not publicized or huge. There are at least 200 families in our organization that will never be on the news that are just quietly helping raise children in need. There is a lot of good in the world, it just is not publicized, which gives me a lot of hope—it’s not about being famous!”
Do you have any future goals with your cause you want to share?
“My main goals are to get computers, connect people, and get volunteers to help foster parents. I want to try and make bigger connections, so the pipeline is more open. I am a one man show on at my charity, Foster Kids Computer Project, where I flip laptops to give to foster kids. My main goal is sourcing computers, specifically laptops people want to get rid of that are not too ancient. I focus on laptops seriously now because foster kids are moving a lot and having a laptop helps them out a lot.”
What can people do to get involved or support the cause?
“You can donate to Collaborative Foster Care. If you want to get rid of and send a laptop, reach out to me. If you’re interested in helping in foster care reach out to your local foster care to help. If you have any questions about about getting involved in foster care feel free to reach out.”
“You don’t have to do everything to have an impact. If you just do a little bit, and everybody is doing something, it all adds up. The system is constantly understaffed and undertrained so any encouragement and anything that people can do ends up going a long way.”