Christie Simons, Atlanta Angels (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 341)
Christie Simons, Executive DIrector of Atlanta Angels, shares with host John Ray how her organization helps foster children and their foster parents. She relates how her personal journey adopting a foster child informs her work today and much more. “North Fulton Business Radio” is produced virtually from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta.
Atlanta Angels
The mission of Atlanta Angels is to walk alongside children, youth, and families in the foster care community by offering consistent support through intentional giving, relationship building, and mentorship.
They value building community around families who care for children who have been through trauma, abuse, and neglect to show them they are not alone. Their programs utilize a trauma-informed, holistic, wrap-around support service model that strengthens the health of the home. Atlanta Angels values empowering the local community to volunteer to make a meaningful and powerful impact on the foster care community.
When families and youth are matched with committed volunteers and mentors who show up monthly, parents feel supported, and youth gain a greater sense of belonging and self-confidence. They value the gift of hope for every child to find healing and reach their fullest potential. They know the value of love, friendship, and positive role models who will speak truth and life into the children in their programs and the selfless people who care for them.
Their dream is to open National Angels chapters in every metropolitan city in the nation so every single child in foster care in the United States will be supported and empowered to succeed. They believe their programs further the greater good of local communities and provide a real and tangible role to play within the foster care system.
Their motivation is to ensure every child feels a deep sense of belonging and care, every youth reaches their fullest potential and achieves their dreams, and every fostering family feels seen and supported along their journey.
Christie Simons, Executive Director, Atlanta Angels
Christie is a counselor by training, holding her Master’s degree in Marriage and Family Therapy from Richmont Graduate University, and is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Certified Advanced Alcohol and Drug Counselor. She currently works as the director of a university counseling center and has also served as an adjunct professor of psychology and program manager of a medication-assisted addiction treatment center. She enjoys leading teams and believes strongly in pursuing all things with excellence. Christie is a certified Mental Health Trainer and has had the opportunity to speak, present, and train at many local and national conferences.
Christie and her husband adopted their daughter through the foster system three years ago. Six years ago, their daughter was one of the over 5,000 children in the foster system in the Atlanta-area. Today, she is a happy, flourishing, adopted, and incredibly loved little girl. Christie’s desire to launch Atlanta Angels was born out of the pain of the knowledge that her story is an exception, and the call to change the story. Her vision to see every foster parent supported and every child in foster care know that they are valued, loved, and worthy in the metro-Atlanta area.
Christie enjoys spending her free time with her family and friends. She especially enjoys watching her daughter at Tae Kwon Do, doing crafts, going on bike rides, playing games, going to Braves games, doing yoga, wine tasting, and baking. She believes wholeheartedly in always taking a holistic view of people, that everyone has a story to tell, and that we need to change our idea of self-care from an escape from life to building a life that we don’t need to escape from.
Questions and Topics in this Interview:
- Current state of the foster system and outcomes
- How our programs address these to change these outcomes
- Love Box Program
- Dare to Dream Program
- History of Atlanta Angels
- Current needs to reach every children/family in foster care
- Golf Tournament in May (Foster Care Awareness month)
North Fulton Business Radio” is hosted by John Ray and produced virtually from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link. The show is available on all the major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeart Radio, Stitcher, TuneIn, and others.
Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has grown to become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions with over $13 billion in assets and more than 190 banking, lending, wealth management and financial services offices in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of their banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you because they work and live alongside you every day.
