Rimini Street employees come together for a volunteer project at M Resort to make blankets for Las Vegas foster kids on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2022.
Monday, Oct. 10, 2022 | 2 a.m.
Many residents have blankets on their beds and sofas. Some children use them to make forts in the living room. Even our dogs’ cages are often lined with blankets.
But for the 3,400 Clark County children who are in foster care, they come mostly empty-handed when entering the system and being assigned to a foster family. While that family will have plenty of bedding, a child is wise enough to know it doesn’t necessarily belong to them.
That premise was behind a service project last week by Rimini Street, a Las Vegas-based software product and service provider whose employees made 500 fleece blankets for foster children during a company gathering at M Resort. They made an additional 100 blankets for animals waiting for adoption with Nevada SPCA, a group that advocates against cruelty to animals.
The blankets were donated to Foster Kinship, a nonprofit organization that provides adjustment packages to children entering the foster system in the Clark County Department of Public Services. The blankets are part of a package that includes hygiene products, clothing and a stuffed animal.
Many children become so attached to their blankets that they keep them for life, said Denise Parker, a 40-year veteran in foster care who works for Clark County. Two of her foster sons, both in their 20s, still have their adjustment-package blankets.
“That shows how meaningful it is for some of them,” Parker said.
About 300 Rimini Street staffers participated in the project, using blanket-making kits to complete the job in about two hours. Las Vegan Diego Caorsi, a client manager for the company, says there’s great satisfaction in giving back to his community.
He stressed that the activity wasn’t a chore, but a privilege. Every child deserves a blanket and more, he said.
“We are about making a difference,” he said.
This isn’t the lone time Rimini Street, a company of 1,800 employees, has been active in charitable works in Las Vegas, officials said. They made care packages for Meals on Wheels and hygiene kits for those experiencing homelessness.
In total, the company says it has supported 350 charities across six continents through monetary donations and volunteer hours.
In a statement, Rimini Street founder and CEO Seth Ravin said the company is “guided by a greater purpose to create a better world through opportunity for all.”
Ali Caliendo, the director of Foster Kinship, founded the group in 2011 when she noticed a disparity in resources for children in nonparental care. She’s a noted Las Vegas-area advocate for children and families, with a focus on foster and adoptive families.
If it weren’t for the many donations her group receives, they wouldn’t be able to continue to provide guardians with the adjustment packages for a child they are taking in. Children can stay in the system through age 18.
Her group was down to its last blanket before the Rimini Street event. They made 2-square-yard blankets.
“When a child goes into a new home, (the blanket) is something that can’t be taken away from them because mentally, they feel everything else has,” Caliendo said.
Parker and Caliendo were on site at M Resort to show their appreciation for the blanket-making efforts. As the stack of completed blankets in the back of the room quickly started to grow, the sense of gratification started to grow with everyone in the room.
It’s some of the most meaningful charity work the company — the leading third-party support for Oracle and SAP products — will do this year, and many took pride in being part of the effort, said Janet Ravin, committee chair of Rimini Street, the philanthropic arm of the company.
“Things we often take for granted, such as blankets and small sentiments, are sometimes the most sought-after essential for a child in the foster care program,” she said in a statement.
