Hip-Hop legend DMC will hold a press conference on Monday (May 12) to announce a new partnership with Children’s Aid and Family Services, a Paramus, New Jersey based non-profit organization serving children in the state’s foster care/adoption system.
DMC will serve as the face of CAFS’s new “It’s Cool to Care” campaign, helping to raise awareness and encourage adults to make a difference in the lives of adoptive and foster children.
“When [children in foster care] look at me, I want them to say, ‘You’re the same as me.’ I want them to understand that there is no one more special than them in this world,” said the pioneering Run-DMC co-founder. “When I saw what the agency has done in the past and continues to do for families, I was flattered when they asked for my help. I said: ‘What do you need me for?’,” he adds. “The agency and I both believe in assisting these kids to fly in their futures. We want to find families to care for them, to give them hope, and to motivate them to fulfill their dreams.”
DMC will serve as the face of the new campaign, gracing billboards, video and radio PSAs, as well as CAFS’s web site, giving a voice to the thousands of children in New Jersey who benefit from the organization’s services.
He will also take on a mentoring role in the lives of kids awaiting to be reunited with their families or taken in by new families.
The rapper will also visit the agency’s group homes and engage in dialogue directly with the children.
“We are so excited and honored that Darryl will be working with us to help bring awareness to children currently in foster care, available for adoption, and those aging out of foster care,” said Bob Jones, PhD, President & CEO of Children’s Aid and Family Services. “Darryl provides a positive role model to these children that they are not alone, that someone as successful and famous as DMC really cares about them.”
DMC has taken on the personal agenda of championing foster children since 2000, when his parents revealed that he was adopted, as he gathered information for his autobiography.
That mission began with the creation of the Felix Organization/Adoptees for Children, which he launched in 2006 with HBO Casting Director Sheila Jaffe (The Sopranos/Entourage), providing opportunities and new experiences for children without parents.
He went on to add a summer camp called Camp Felix, which hosts 150 foster children from inner city areas each year.
In 2007, DMC released the Emmy Award winning DMC: My Adoption Journey, a VH1-produced documentary that gave viewers an intimate look into the rapper’s quest to discover his birth origins.
Earlier this year, he testified in from of the New Jersey Senate in support of SB 611, a bill that would allow adult adoptees access to their original birth records.
The bill is currently in committee and will soon come before the New Jersey State Assembly.
