Darcy Blankenship is a volunteer with Office Moms & Dads and serves children in Clark County, WA.

About OMD:  The average child can wait in a child welfare office anywhere from three to five hours after being taken into protective custody.  Meanwhile, social workers spend that time frantically searching for a suitable foster home or relative. This wait after a removal can be one of the most frightening and uncertain times in a child’s life. OMD volunteers help ease the transition by entertaining children waiting in child welfare offices.

Sarah Desjarlais, Executive Director of Office Moms & Dads, provides the following information about Darcy:

"Darcy has been serving with Office Moms & Dads (OMD) almost since its inception in 2013. She began as a volunteer Office Mom shortly after retiring from her full time position with the BPA. Darcy was one of those volunteers you could always count on. She poured her entire heart into the kids she sat with, and took extra time to make sure the room was tidy, toys were intact, and shelves were stocked with comfort items. The social workers loved her cheerful smiles, and the children in her care always felt loved even for the short time she spent with them.

As OMD grew, Darcy transitioned into the Care Box Coordinator. She implemented her management and organizational skills flawlessly and took the Care Box program to another level, reaching more children, engaging more community members, and wowing more social workers than ever before!  For the past year and a half, Blankenship has been the Clark County Volunteer Coordinator who is responsible for receiving requests submitted by social workers and then finding an available volunteer to fill the request.  Her experience and passion helped form a training manual that all OMD program branches use throughout Washington and Idaho, and she continues to reach out to train and encourage other Volunteer Coordinators throughout the state.

In short, Office Moms & Dads would not be where it is without Darcy. She is one of those people who fly right under the radar, performing her duties without fail, never asking for the slightest bit of recognition. Her skill set is hard to define, but vital to this organization. Because we have her on our team, over 500 children were comforted by OMD volunteers during their moment of crisis in 2017 alone. Hundreds of volunteers worked over 1,000 hours to further our mission of caring for children entering foster care. Darcy herself has committed countless hours to the comfort and care of children entering foster care in addition to caring for and supporting their social workers, an often overlooked and un-thanked group of people. She has the love and admiration of all who cross her path. The conversation about foster care is changing not only in South West Washington, but all over our state as a direct result of Darcy's influence and example!”

​To learn more, visit: ​officemomsanddads.com