Make Room for Kids

Read more about our lives on our blog .

First: A Little Background on The Benzakein Family

Having grown up in the foster care system, Jessica has a special place in her heart for children in the system. We felt a strong desire to open our home and family up as a safe haven for sibling groups and special needs children lingering in the foster care system. Before we even had a chance to fill out all of the proper paperwork and go through the classes, we were presented with the opportunity to help out a single mother with her three boys. In November of 2014, after jumping a few hurdles and paving a few potholes we were awarded custodial guardianship of the three boys and will care for them until their mother takes the much-needed steps to turn her life around.

We couldn’t be more happy ... “our cup runneth over” …. and so do our three bedrooms stuffed to the brink with 5 children under the age of 10!

What this Campaign is About

Currently the kids are living in makeshift living spaces, which includes the baby in our bedroom. This is fine for now and has definitely helped all the children bond. But they are going to grow up fast and we need to take the next steps to prepare long term living spaces for them.

We have an attic that is big enough to allow for a full conversion. The tangible result of this conversion will give all the children their own room, along with the ability to take in another set of siblings with the intent to adopt. But more than that, this move on our part shows all the children, our two natural kids and the three new additions, that we are 100% committed to them for the long haul.

Beyond the three children we have taken in, we are going through the process of getting licensed through a foster to adopt organization so that we can adopt an additional sibling group. In Milwaukee County alone, there are over 2,000 new children a month placed in the Foster system with many of them considered "special needs" because they belong to a sibling group. Siblings are the hardest to place together and even harder to adopt out to the same family. Because of this, many children are psychologically affected for life. Our goal, with the expanded living spaces, is to specifically look for a sibling group of three or more to adopt since we know the importance of keeping a family together as much as is humanly possible.
Will You Help Us Tilt the Attic?

Honestly, it’s uncomfortable for us to ask our friends and families, and the community at large, to help us help these children. But the truth is, renovating this home to make room for these children (and hopefully, a few more!) is extremely expensive. The home is older and in an historically designated neighborhood. As such this requires some updating to meet safety codes and other engineering specs.

This attic conversion comes with a $140,000 price tag. We scrimped and saved up half of the cost and have already given our builder a 50% down payment. It will take us a few years to save up the rest of the money but the reality is, the kids are not going to stop growing while we save our pennies, and we’ll have a house full of tweens very soon.Therefore,  we are asking all of you to help make our dreams for bedrooms for each of the kids come true!

Contribute any amount:We will link to your site or social networking profile on a public thank you page on our twotofive.us family blog.

You will receive, via snail mail, a personal thank you note with some Tilt the Attic stickers* and a copy of our recent family photo!  

We  will be sending all contributors a private email newsletter with regular updates and photos of the conversion along with a live feed link of the conversion as it’s happening. You can, of course, opt out of the newsletter, but we want to keep all our friends and family up to date with details that we wouldn’t feel comfortable posting on a public blog.

Where do your contributions go?

2nd Staircase (required): $30,000
Two Bathrooms: $30,000
Flooring: $14,000
Skylights: $2,000
All New Subfloors: $6,000
Four rooms: $12,000
Plumbing: $10,000
Electrical & Lights: $5,000
Paint: $5,000
Doors: $2,500
Trim: $2,000
Heating/Cooling: $15,000
Bedding & Furniture: $2,000
Unforeseen Incidentals: $5,000

Will you help us help these children?

Will you help us show them that the world hasn’t forgotten about them and that we are in it to win it? Will you help our children see how amazing the world can be when you step out in good faith and put your own resources on the line for the benefit of others? Most importantly - will you help us give all the kids a feeling of stability rather than limbo - help us give them a place to really call home.

We now have a PO Box if you wish to contribute via mail:

Benzakein Family
PO Box 80518
Milwaukee, WI 53208

*The logo for the stickers was created by 9yr old aspiring artist, Abby White. Her mom is Emily White of Emily