An Angel of Grace

      Angels walk beside us every day. Angels are those who work to help others and improve our society. Lisa Casarez is one of these people.

      Lisa Casarez is a successful, inspirational and motivated individual. She is the founder and CEO of Angels of Grace Foster Family Agency in Fresno.

      Her success cannot merely be measured by the 30 certificates of accomplishments and recognitions she has hanging on the wall of her office, or the decade of service she has given to our community. Lisa’s success comes from her own will, determination and vision to overcome obstacles to be where she is today.

      Her line of work is difficult and stressful. Lisa has noticed an increase in the number of children coming into the foster care system since the current economic crisis. She says that parents are stressing over money, losing jobs and turning to drugs to relieve those worries.

      The children involved in such cases need the most help. Foster care is one solution to this increasing problem. Lisa believes humans need to help each other. She never thought she would help by founding a foster care agency that has housed well over 200 children.  

     “I was 18 years old and had no aspiration of going to college. I was a married housewife with two kids and one on the way. That was my life,” said Lisa.

      She experienced abuse in her marriage. She had faith in keeping the marriage together, but finally realized it would be best for her and her children to leave.

    “One of the officers who frequently reported to my house gave me a card to the Marjaree Mason Center,” said Lisa. The Marjaree Mason Center is a domestic violence shelter.

    “I was sitting at the shelter when I saw a commercial for Fresno City College. I realized I needed to go to college to get a well-paying job so I could support my kids. But I was pregnant with my third baby and thought it’d be impossible to go to school,” said Lisa. 

     She enrolled anyway. Unaware of child care services on campus, Lisa took her kids to class with her.

   “I made a deal with them; if they allowed me to finish school, then I would take them to Disneyland. If they started acting up in class, I would whisper Disneyland and they would settle down,” said Lisa

    Lisa originally enrolled at Fresno City College with the intent of becoming a dental hygienist, but that didn’t happen. She was working at the college as an assistant for a counselor.

     She assisted the counselor with restraining orders for battered women on campus. Lisa became an advocate for women, and through that experience found her calling in social work.

    With the help and encouragement of school counselors and close friends, Lisa continued her education, and enrolled at California State University, Fresno, to get a bachelor’s degree in social work.  

     She came across a scholarship that awarded a free trip to anywhere in the United States. In order to receive the scholarship, however, she needed to be enrolled in a master’s program. Lisa filled out an application to the master’s program for social work. Her plan, if she won, was to take her kids to Disneyland.

     She won. She flew her kids to Florida and took them to Disney World. She had kept her word, and was accepted to Fresno State’s master’s program for social work.

    Lisa received her master’s degree in 2000. During the program, she helped found two foster care agencies. She used this experience, along with her faith and vision for what she wanted in an agency, and decided to open her own.

     In the beginning, the agency was located in the library of a local attorney’s office. “Me and the attorney would walk around his office looking for a place to move Angels of Grace. This building used to be a modeling agency, but as soon as I saw it, I knew it had everything I wanted. I started making plans on how I would reconstruct it. I would put a huge play area in the middle and make offices for the workers. It was a dream come true when he invested in the agency and bought the building,” said Lisa.

     The building contains several offices for the social workers, a big play area filled with toys for the children, a kitchen, a restroom and a big closet filled with donated clothes. It has everything Lisa prayed it would.

     Children are placed in the agency immediately after they are taken from their homes. Sometimes, children come in with nothing but a diaper on. In this case, the children are taken to the closet and properly dressed.

     “It has been such a blessing that people have donated so many clothes. I made an announcement at church, and people’s hearts were touched. They donated most of the clothes that are in there. It’s really expensive, you know, to clothe every child that comes through here, so it really has been a blessing to have a closet full of clothes for children of all ages,” said Lisa.

     Children have also come in with head lice. Lisa takes those children to the bathtub and washes their hair to get rid of the lice.

     “Most of the kids that come in are from rough homes. They aren’t used to getting attention, or even eating well. I take every kid to the kitchen and give them a Ring Pop, the candies that are in the shape of big, fancy rings. I tell them, you are royalty; you are a son of the king of kings. They love it, their faces just light up,” said Lisa.

     She receives calls to pick up children during all hours of the day. Child Protective Services are the first to respond to a crime scene where there are children involved, whether it’s an arrest or drug bust.

     CPS then hands the children over to a foster care agency; this is when Lisa is contacted. She doesn’t mind getting up at early hours in the morning or late at night because she finds strength in rescuing these children from dangerous environments.

     Lisa says, “You never know who it is you are helping and how powerful that help can be.” Lisa recently started a transitional home that houses young adults who have been released from the foster care system. In order to receive funding for the home, she had to propose the idea to a financial board.

     The young woman in charge of the board recognized Lisa. It turned out that she was a child in one of the foster care agencies that Lisa helped found during graduate school. The young woman gladly signed the funding approval for the transitional home.

      As soon as you step foot into Lisa’s office, you get a sense of the person she is. Lisa is strong in her faith. Her office is filled with angels. There are pictures of angels, angel decorations, encouraging phrases posted for all to see, and Christian music that plays softly in the background. That’s why she named the agency Angels of Grace.

     “Humans need each other. We are better together. If we pour into the hearts of our youth, they will do the same to their youth,’ says Lisa.

      She encourages people in the community to get involved, whether it’s through becoming a foster parent or any other form of community service.

     The agency is always in need of foster parents. For more information on the agency or becoming a foster parent, visit the local agency located at 1350 Van Ness Ave. in downtown Fresno, or call (559) 268-0000.

     Lisa is only one person, but the chain of people she has helped and inspired is a long one.