Community Highlights: Meet Melissa Whitlock of Bloom Family Designs

Today we’d like to introduce you to Melissa Whitlock.

Hi Melissa, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Growing up, my heart was always drawn to stories of families adopting children in need. I didn’t know exactly what my role would be in this one day, but I knew I needed to pay close to attention to the orphan crisis that was happening all around us. After marrying my husband, Will, we began to consider adopting a child before starting our family biologically. But before we were able to start pursuing this, I surprisingly became pregnant with our son, Beckham.

We were overjoyed with the arrival of our beautiful son, yet my desire to adopt a child did not go away. In fact, in only grew stronger as I walked into motherhood. I began to ask myself the question, “If I am not personally able to adopt a child today, does that mean that I am supposed to sit and wait my turn to serve children in need?”. I continued to hear more and more stories of families and children in need of support in our own backyard. And after watching many friends walk through the adoption/foster care process, I began to notice a need when it came to preparing their children’s rooms.

Oftentimes, foster and adoptive families do not have a lot of time and/or resources left to prepare a room for their children-to-be. With all the paperwork, court dates, fundraising, etc. preparing a room for their children was often the last thing on their list. I saw lots of empty rooms, furniture waiting to be assembled, and bags of donations to sort through with little to no time, or even direction, on where to start with it all. I also could not stop thinking about the thousands of children that come into foster care without a single thing to their name. Didn’t they deserve the same attention and welcoming spaces as our biological children? Why did they always get our leftovers?

With my background in residential design and non-profit work, I felt like this was a way that I could support children and families in need. Some friends of ours started fostering and asked for some guidance on their soon-to-be children’s room. After listening to their desires over coffee, I knew I wasn’t only being called to design their children’s space, but I also believed I was supposed to cover the cost financially.

Not knowing exactly what this looked liked, I took the first step and began gathering a team of volunteers and donors to help create a beautiful room for the children they would care for. Within a few weeks, we raised enough funds to cover all the needed items and installed our very first room through Bloom Family Designs. Since that time, I have continued to serve foster and adoptive families that were placed in front of us, with whatever resources we had available. I never had a large goal or number to hit in mind. I have simply been focused on serving one family and child at a time, to the best of my ability.

In the last four years, the mission of Bloom Family Designs has grown and we have designed, furnished, and installed over 70 ROOMS for foster and adopted children at no cost to the families. We are now a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization in Nashville, TN that runs on volunteers, individual donors, and a lot of love! I consider it a true honor to be serve alongside of so many incredible people in our community. Together, we have been able to wrap around so many families when they needed it most and help welcome home foster and adopted children in a beautiful way!

This past spring, Bloom Family Designs launched their “National Designer Partnership Program” and are now connecting professional interior designers to foster and adoptive families all across the country – a step that Melissa never saw coming, but is beyond humbled and honored to be a part of.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
To be honest, nothing about this journey has been smooth. I dove headfirst into this mission without any knowledge of what it would take to start a non-profit organization. I spent countless hours building a website, taking online courses, developing a board of directors, raising funds, etc. And the whole time, I have felt under-qualified. I have made lots of mistakes, second-guessed my abilities regularly, and have learned a lot by just “taking the next step”.

But, every single time I meet one of the families we have the honor of serving, all the fears and worries go away. I no longer think about my inadequacies because I become so inspired by the work they are doing every single day in the lives of their little ones. This journey has never been about my abilities or resources but about simply serving to the best of my ability and inviting others to join along the way. These children need our support, and the only way to begin helping is by taking the next step, even if that means going scared. No matter your role, everyone can do something and together, we can make a difference in a child’s life.

As you know, we’re big fans of Bloom Family Designs. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Bloom Family Designs is a nonprofit organization based out of Nashville, TN with a mission to create beautifully designed rooms for foster and adopted children at no cost to the families. Since their launch in June of 2017, Bloom has gifted over 70 ROOMS to foster and adopted children through the support of their community, individual donors, and volunteers.

They recently launched a national program to be able to connect professional interior designers to foster and adoptive families across the country. You can learn more about Bloom Family Designs at www.bloomfamilydesigns.com or by following us on Instagram @bloomfamilydesigns.

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: https://www.bloomfamilydesigns.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bloomfamilydesigns/

Image Credits
Evin Photography + Hey World Creative