Join A Care Team

Bringing Hope and Healing to Vulnerable Children

Okoa’s Residential Child Rescue Center is truly special! Each child is supported by mentors, social workers, caretakers, and healthcare professionals who ensure their needs are met while Okoa works to secure a safe, permanent family placement whenever possible. Become part of the children’s journey from crisis to family by joining a Care Team. Your monthly support ensures vulnerable children receive vital necessities like nutritious food, safe shelter, quality healthcare, and access to education. Most importantly, your sponsorship provides the love and guidance every child needs as we work to reunite them with their families or help them find a forever home.

Donate towards the Rescue Center!

Finding Forever Families

When you join the Care Team through monthly support, you become a critical part of the journey to help these children find their forever family.

How it works

Correspondence

Care Team partners receive updates about the children at Okoa’s Residential Rescue Center, including status of the resettlement process and learning about the child’s development. You’ll even receive handwritten or hand drawn notes, videos, or pictures. All correspondence is saved in a central location for easy viewing at any time! Care Team partners are also encouraged to send notes to share as well. It’s as easy as sending an email to careteam@okoarefuge.org!

Gifts

Every child loves receiving gifts, and children at Okoa are no different! Suggested gifts include:

For ages 0–7: dolls, clothes, balls, bubbles, chalk, coloring books.
For ages 7+: clothes, hoodies, ball caps, art paper, journals.
Gifts can be mailed to Okoa Refuge at PO Box 50014, Jacksonville Beach, FL 32240.

Gifts must be packaged in a gallon size ziplock bag and labeled with your name. Packages are usually sent with a team traveling to Uganda.

Visiting

Did you know you can come to Uganda? Yes! As a Care Team partner, we invite and encourage you to come visit the children whose lives you’re impacting! Visits occur during Okoa short-term mission trips, so be sure to check out our current trip dates! If you happen to be in-country for any other reason, please send an email to careteam@okoarefuge.org for details on how to arrange to visit the Rescue Center you’re supporting.

Resettlement & Adoption

We celebrate when children are placed in safe, loving homes! When this happens, you learn the news and details directly from us. If the new family no longer needs support, the child leaves our program. Some families in which our children are resettled, receive financial support to ensure the child(ten) are getting the care they need. This is critical to why we have general support of the Rescue Center, as the goal is always finding a forever family and the timeline of support for each child varies. Some stay at Okoa for days while other remain until adulthood.

MEET THE OKOA CHILDREN

Discover the life-changing impact of your support with Okoa Refuge. Our app connects you directly to the inspiring ministry in Uganda, Africa, making it easy to stay updated on the latest stories and posts from the field.

Visit the App Store Get it on Google Play

Residential program

Okoa works diligently to find forever families for each child in our care, but sometimes, it is not possible. For those children, Okoa is and always will be “home.” From housing, meals, healthcare, daily needs, mentoring, and education, these children receive love and everything they need from Okoa.

Residential program fees

Become Part of a Care Team!

It only takes $150*/month to provide excellent care to one Okoa child!

Care Team partners give monthly support in full ($150/month) or in $25 increments.

Picture of girl in a pink dress swinging on a swing in a playground.

Family & Disability program

We partner with families as they grow to confidently lead, provide, and care for their children with disabilities and/or significant medical needs. Okoa covers surgery costs, provides medicines and therapies, supplies specialized and custom assistive devices, and champions parents as they create the best environments for their children to thrive.

An Evening of Hope 2026 – September 26th @ TPC Sawgrass – Buy Tickets Today!