SHERIDAN — When Carla Crayton was 8 years old, her mother packed Crayton’s bags and put her on a plane in Minnesota to go and live with a first cousin in Kansas.
There had been no warning that this was going to happen. She’d never been on a plane before, much less on a plane by herself.
And she had never even met this adult cousin or his wife, who were going to become her foster parents.
She was, to say the least, terrified.
“My foster parents recount that they saw me get off the plane with my teddy bear, and I was hugging it like this,” she said, wrapping her arms around herself. “That’s how it all began.”
Today, Crayton runs the Sheridan Foster Care Exchange, a nonprofit she started in 2012 after she became a foster parent herself.
Crayton makes sure each child who enters the foster care system in her region gets an overnight bag, worth about $450, that’s stuffed with everything a child might need for their first week. They get a set of clean, new clothes, all in their sizes. They get toiletries. They get some toys and a handmade quilted blanket.
Most important of all, they get what she calls a “warmie.”
That’s a microwaveable stuffed animal with lavender in it.
The scent is calming, Crayton said, and it’s something warm and fuzzy that the child can hug at a time when the world has shown them just how cold it can sometimes be.
“We try to buy everything local,” Crayton said. “Sometimes it’s not possible. Sometimes we support our local Walmart. But if I can buy it local, I do.”
Calls come to the Sheridan Foster Care Exchange at all hours of the day and the night. Often with little to no warning.
It doesn’t matter.
Crayton and her team of volunteers are always ready. No matter what the time, no matter how many the children.
Carla Crayton hugs a "warmie," which is a plush stuffed animal with lavender inside it. It can be heated in the microwave so it is warm, and the scent it gives off is supposed to be calming. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
A photo of Carla Crayton with Treylah. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Jeans, hats, shoes, curling irons, purses — everything a teenage girl might need or want, inside the Sheridan Foster Care Exhange's shopping area. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Teenage shopping area inside the Sheridan Foster Care Exchange. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
One of the shopping areas inside the Sheridan Foster Care Exchange. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Inside the Sheridan Foster Care Exchange. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
A Childhood Turned Upside Down
Crayton’s nonprofit began as a brainstorm between herself and her first foster child, an 8-year-old girl named Treyla, who arrived on a bleak New Year’s Eve night in 2011.
“It was probably around 8 or 9 at night,” Crayton recalled. “They brought her to my home, and we went to Walmart, to buy a bunch of things for her, and she was just sobbing.”
Crayton had no idea what to say or do to calm the child.
“It was overwhelming for me, and I couldn’t even begin to imagine how overwhelming it was for her,” Crayton said. “I thought there’s got to be a better way to do this. When a kid comes, they shouldn’t need to go shopping.”
After that night, Crayton and Treyla put their heads together. They came up with all kinds of ideas about how to make things better for children entering the foster care system, and the parents who care for them.
Wouldn’t it be cool, they thought, if every child who entered the foster care system just got a bag full of nice clothes, all in their size, with all the toiletries they needed, and some toys and some school supplies.
No overnight shopping trip required.
The two didn’t stop with just dreaming about their ideas though. They started taking concrete steps to make their dreams a reality.
Pile It On
Their nonprofit was a team effort from the beginning, Crayton said.
She and Treyla would drop by all the yard sales each weekend, asking if they could come pick up any unused clothing for foster care children on the cheap, or even for free. Crayton even printed up flyers that she could take with her, to explain their idea, and provide their contact information.
That sometimes resulted in huge bags full of clothes, in all sorts of sizes.
Exactly what they needed.
“Treyla loved to sort the clothes,” Crayton recalled. “It was her favorite thing. She’d say, ‘Pile it on, pile it on.”
Crayton did just as Treyla ordered, with a big smile on her face.
She would pour out all the unsold clothes that they had nabbed from their yard sale trips, and Treyla would start picking through them one by one. Many were in great condition, very gently used. Some had never even been worn at all.
All the keepers would get washed, then Treyla and Cratyon would fold them all, sorting them into piles according to size.
All the clothes and toys Crayton and Treyla collected went onto shelves they had built for Crayton’s one-bedroom apartment in the somewhat over-sized kitchen.
Carla Crayton holds up a handmade quilt that was later given to a teenager, who Crayton said was smiling, but choking back tears at the same time when she received the quilt. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Crayton picks up a stuffed animal in the gift area of the Sheridan Foster Care Exchange. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
Inside the Sheridan Foster Care Exchange. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
This area was painted by a former foster care child, and creates a space that Crayton said children just love. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
Unstoppable Growth
Treyla slept in the dining room, where Crayton had created a makeshift second bedroom with a dresser and a bed using a curtain, giving it at least some privacy.
But the tiny apartment was just too small for their great, big idea. So, Crayton rented a couple of storage units next, to grow their idea even bigger.
Their first trip to those storage units was in the dead of winter, and it was one cold, Wyoming winter that year.
“Our fingers got like stuck to the U-Haul,” Crayton said, chuckling at the memory.
Cold or not, the storage units gave them plenty of room to work and to keep growing.
But their idea just could not be contained in two little old storage units. As more and more people in the community took note of what they were doing, more angels of the community started pitching in. Pretty soon, they didn’t just have a pile of clothing and toys. They had little mountains growing in their storage units.
They were going to need a lot more room.
“I find that if you know about something, then you feel like you have to do something,” Crayton said. “And I feel like sometimes people don’t necessarily know about something, but once they do know about it, they’re like, ‘Okay, what can I do?’”
Before too long, one of those people offered her a large donation so she could find a bigger, more permanent home.
All she had to do was figure out how to become a licensed nonprofit.
Crayton didn’t waste any time sorting that out. While she had no idea how to become a nonprofit, people knew a good cause when they saw one and there were always plenty of people more than willing to help her, any time something needed the least bit of figuring.
In fact, the building she now occupies at 72 E. Ridge Road, Unit 1K, in Sheridan, came about in a similar way. The gentleman who used to own that building repaired cars there and kept a couple of classic cars.
But when Crayton needed a bigger home, he more than generously offered her a $50,000 match to buy the location.
“We were able to raise all the funds with the community’s help in about eight months,” Crayton said.
Retaining Existing Foster Care Families
Crayton now has plenty of room for her nonprofit endeavors, which have expanded to include homeless children, children in crisis and reunification of parents and children.
She even has space to set up shopping areas for the children who visit, so they can come in later to find anything else they might need to feel loved and at home, whether it’s a new purse, a pair of jeans, a curling iron, a coat and gloves.
Crayton was named the 2025 Andrus Award for Community Service winner by AARP Wyoming for her work with the foster care system. That award recognizes individuals 50 and up who are using their experience and skills to help others and involves a statewide voting process.
Last year, Crayton served more than 1,500 children through all of her programs, provided 31 beds, took 194 kids on a Christmas shopping trip, and distributed more than $130,000 in merchandise to children in need.
Ashley Handley, foster care coordinator for Sheridan and Johnson Counties, told Cowboy State Daily there are about 60 children in foster care right now in her territory, and that the need for more foster care families continues to grow every year.
“We need every type, every dynamic, of families, who are willing to take on all different types of children,” she said. “Whether it’s the vast age ranges, on up into the teenagers, the sibling group, minorities. We just need foster families so badly.”
Having a program like Crayton’s helps with retention of existing foster care families, Handley added.
“Our foster families don’t have every item of clothing and size and gender and shoe,” she said. “And to go out and have to spend all of this money every single time, it really does add up.”
But what Crayton does is so much more than just clothes, Handley added.
“Carla has been able to get beds for us in the middle of the night for these foster families,” she said. “And then just that lived experience that she told you about. The families really use her as a support in so many ways, which is just wonderful.”
Carla Crayton shows an example of the bag she fills with stuff for each and every child entering foster care in her area. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
An example of all the stuff that goes into one of the overnight bags Carla Crayton packs for children entering the foster care system. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily) 
All natural playdough that came from a local business is among items going into an overnight bag for foster care children. (Renee Jean, Cowboy State Daily)
It’s All About Cake, And Dignity
Two years ago, Crayton had a foster child enter the system who had never had a birthday party before. That turned on a little light bulb. She had missed something important here. So, she started a little corner with presents so that any child entering the foster care system close to their birthday wouldn’t miss out on a nice celebration. Then she found a lady who could make birthday cakes on the spot, ordered up a bouncy house for the child, who said she didn’t want to jump herself, but she wanted to watch other people jumping for joy on her birthday.
“I want these children to have absolute dignity,” Crayton said. “That’s my thing.”
And she also wants all of the children to feel loved and supported.
“Foster kids who age out of the care are very, very likely to be trafficked,” she said. “I believe the percentage is about 60%. That’s because they’re just so vulnerable after what they’ve been through.”
Nothing is harder for a child to handle than even the whiff of an idea that their parent might not love them, something Crayton knows firsthand. She knows all the questions that run through a child’s mind in these types of situations, because she was once that child herself.
“So, that’s why I really try to support the foster parents and the kids,” she said. “I want them to have dignity. And I want the kid to be able to go back in their mind and say, ‘Hey, I was really supported at this time in my life.’ My hope in my heart is that they won’t accept anything less if they felt that love that one time. That they won’t ever accept anything less in the future.”
Becoming a foster parent, after having been a foster child herself, is one of the most heartbreaking but beautiful things Cratyon believes she has ever done in her life.
Since beginning Sheridan Foster Care Exchange, an entire community has rallied behind her mission. Maurices clothing store, for example, does clothing drives for the exchange, while Red Rooster invites its customers to donate warmies and books. Countless other people volunteer their time and efforts making quilts, buying toys, making sure every child feels loved at one of the worst times in their lives.
Thanks to that support, Crayton has been able to add programs that help homeless parents, and programs to reunite parents with children. She’s also helping other communities, like Torrington to start their own programs.
One day, she hopes there will be a foster care exchange in every county of the state.
“My foster dad asked me a few years ago when we went to breakfast, ‘What do you see happening here,’” Crayton said. “He’s one of those, ‘What’s going to happen in five years, what’s going to happen in 10 years kind of people.’
“And I told him, well, I’d like to see this everywhere in Wyoming, because it’s a need,” she said. “It’s really, really a need. Anywhere there’s children in crisis, it’s a need.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
