BY DONNA SWICEGOOD

Since it began operating more than seven years ago, Foster Love Adopt Repeat (FLAR) has provided resources for foster parents out of makeshift space in Downtown Mooresville.

Now, the all-volunteer organization has a much more spacious office to welcome foster parents and children and give them everything from advice to supplies to toys.

On Thursday, Foster Love Adopt Repeat welcomed the public to its new space at 131 Overhill Drive with an official ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Mooresville-South Iredell Chamber of Commerce President Kirk Ballard brought the ribbon, oversized scissors and greetings to FLAR.

“Congratulations. This gives you so much more space,” he said to FLAR co-founder Alyse Breger.

Breger and her husband Jeremy founded FLAR in 2018 after becoming foster parents. At that time, she said, there were few resources available to foster parents. The organization began as an informal support group to provide those resources.

An emergency placement of a child or children, she said, sometimes overwhelms a foster parent or parents who do not have a high chair, crib, diapers or even clothing.

“Some of these children arrive with only the clothes on their backs,” Breger explained.

Thanks to FLAR and its group of volunteers and donors, those foster parents can now get the needed items so they can welcome a child into their home.

And with new office space, the organization has room to store everything from clothing and shoes to toys to help ease that transition, Breger said.

FLAR had been operating out of office space in downtown Mooresville for a while, and also utilized churches for a place to meet.

The new office features a playroom for children, spaces for administrative duties and storage in the back for donated supplies.

Breger said she and her husband took in their first foster child in 2018. Since that time they’ve adopted nine foster children.

They began their journey into foster care when a co-worker came in with an infant. “She said the baby was a foster child, and I thought that was something we could do,” Breger recalled.

Soon, she and her husband were approved as foster parents. They quickly learned that the information and resources needed to care for those children were not readily available.

Teaming up with other foster parents, they traded resources, learned about other needs and formed FLAR to help facilitate those resources for other families.

In addition to physical needs such as supplies, FLAR also offers support to the children in foster care such as a program aimed at teenagers – Thrive for girls in grades 6-12 and a similar program called Driven for boys. The programs give teens a place to build friendships and to contact with peers who understand their experiences.

And they are planning a similar program for fifth-graders.

The new office will mean additional space for those programs and give opportunities to expand.

The new space is more than just a building, she said. It’s a place that means safety, growth and love — something FLAR has been offering since 2018.