It was a night of hope and celebration as dozens gathered at Second Baptist Church to hear more about the ongoing and urgent need for safe homes for foster children.

"We encourage and admonish our community to explore foster care, adoption, even mentorship and respite care for families that already have children," Todd Johnson, Second Baptist Church pastor said.

That need for safe homes is ever increasing.

"Often times you know when children come into agency custody, our homes are full and so we have to send children you know sometimes two and three hours away which isn't good for them, we like to keep children in their community, you know in their own school," Ann Marie Mendenhall, with Trumbull County Children's Services said.

Coming down the pipeline is a child welfare bill called Kei'Mani's Law aimed at improving how the state identifies, tracks, and responds to cases of child abuse and neglect. The plan is to require every public school to appoint a child protection liaison, who would manage and coordinate cases of suspected child abuse or neglect, ultimately filling in the gaps.

"Any extra layers of care that we can provide, any extra funding and resources we can provide, that will put these young people in a better position for life, I would support it one hundred percent," Johnson said.

Johnson said the community has to take ownership of these issues in order to help solve them.

"It's just important for us as the African American community and the Christian community to step forward because the need is so great in trumbull county and beyond," Johnson said.

After service, the congregation was encouraged to sign up with Trumbull County services to help be apart of the solution. As for Kei'Mani's law, it's only just being introduced.