If you spent time in foster care as a teenager, or you’re a relative raising a child who came from the foster system, Think of Us runs a cash grant program worth knowing about.
What Is the Check for Us Micro Cash Grant?
This is a current program from the nonprofit Think of Us that provides small, flexible, no-strings-attached cash grants. It’s aimed at two specific groups:
- Transition-age youth, meaning young people aging out of the foster care system; OR
- Kinship caregivers, meaning relatives raising a child outside the traditional foster care system
Instead of a long grant application, participants fill out a survey about their current needs and circumstances, and eligible participants receive direct funding they can use however they need it, along with optional resource recommendations based on what they shared.
A Word of Caution: This Isn’t the 2021 Pandemic Program
If you search for “Check for Us,” you may also come across a related but different campaign from 2021 that connected foster youth to one-time pandemic relief funds. That campaign’s state applications have closed, and it is no longer accepting new applicants
The micro cash grant program described here is a separate, more recent effort from Think of Us, not a continuation of that closed campaign.
How Do You Find Out If It’s Open in Your Area?
This program doesn’t run as one single, always-open national application. Instead, Think of Us deploys it in specific regions at different times; for example, it has run in the Greater Austin, Texas area.
Because of that, the best move is to check the CheckForUs platform directly and follow Think of Us for updates on when a grant window is open in your region.
Relief Recap
Former foster youth and kinship caregivers often fall through the cracks of typical assistance programs, and this fills a real gap even though it isn’t always open everywhere at once. For more cash assistance options while you wait for a window to open near you, check out our roundup of real hardship grants.
