Author: Rebecca Razo

Food has been a foundational part of Caroline Chambers’ life journey. The author, influencer, podcaster, and mom of three started in catering before moving into developing recipes for brands and magazines, which led to her first book deal, for “Just Married: A Cookbook for Newlyweds.”

But after the birth of her first child, Caro (as she prefers to be called) recognized the vast difference between cooking for two and cooking for two while parenting an infant. That’s when she was inspired to write a second cookbook, “What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking” (available now for pre-order). Her first publisher, however, rejected the idea on the premise that her social media presence wasn’t strong enough to support the title.

When the pandemic hit, Chambers’ freelance recipe development work dried up. Seeing it as an opportunity rather than a setback, she built her social channels while creating easy, approachable recipes. “Everyone’s in quarantine, nobody is going to the grocery store,” Chambers says. “It became my thing to write recipes that included substitutions for every single ingredient.” She then began creating “What to cook when you don’t feel like cooking” content through a subscription newsletter. “Overnight, I got like 500 paid subscribers,” she says. “I was like, whoa, this could work.”

Since then, Chambers’ followers have skyrocketed; she has more than 210,000 on Instagram and 152,000 on Substack. She also has 20,000 paid newsletter subscribers, and the book idea that started it all is due to publish this summer.

Growth for the greater good

As Chambers’ online influence has grown, so have her interests. Her social accounts, once only devoted to food, grew into other areas, such as motherhood tips and lifestyle-focused topics. “I love sharing other parts of my life,” she says. One such part she is particularly passionate about is her support for military families. (Her husband, George, is a former Navy SEAL.)

Over the years, Caro and George have held small fundraising events to help military families. But Caro saw a real chance to help when, in February 2020, the United States announced it was pulling its troops out of Afghanistan over the next 14 months (the evacuation wasn’t actually completed until August 2021). That decision resulted in more soldiers, including George, being sent overseas to provide support and security during the withdrawal. “It really disrupted lives,” Chambers says.

Chambers shared her thoughts about the situation on social media, and soon her inbox was flooded with messages from concerned military spouses. She was especially moved by the stories from pregnant women who were days away from delivering and whose husbands would miss the birth of their child.

Chambers wanted to help, so she reached out to her online community asking for donations. Her followers responded in kind: In 24 hours, she raised $80,000.

That’s when she and Heather Looney — a fellow military wife and one of Chambers’ social media followers — got together to locate pregnant military spouses in need. “My husband has three family members who served with Caro’s husband,” says Looney, who also took a cooking class Chambers taught. Chambers asked Looney if she knew anyone who was activated to rapidly deploy for the Afghanistan withdrawal.

“Caro is truly remarkable,” Looney says. “She uses her platform to bring awareness to the sacrifices our soldiers and their families make every day.”

Serving those who serve

While the withdrawal from Afghanistan was the catalyst for the two women coming together to raise and distribute funds, Looney stresses that military families are often in need of support and resources year-round. “Many in the military community struggle financially,” she says. 

Looney devotes much of her time to supporting the military community through her work with nonprofits and other organizations, including Santa’s Castle, which distributes toys at Christmas to children at Fort Moore in Georgia; Battle Buddy Resources, which provides food assistance to Fort Moore families in need; and Operation Deploy Your Dress, which helps offset the costs of formal military functions for military families.

Chambers also continues to be active in raising money for military families, including holding an annual Christmas fundraiser. “We raise close to $100,000 every year,” she says. And as her community has grown, so too have her initiatives, which include providing financial support to families who have lost servicemembers in on-duty accidents and sending ice cream and toys to families. “My community is so generous — it’s become something so much bigger,” she says. “It also shines a light on the sacrifices [military families] make.”

“Where are the vulnerable children?”

That was the question Jillana Goble, author and founder of Every Child Oregon, and her husband, Luke, asked themselves after living for a time in Guatemala, where they worked in an orphanage.  

Jillana already knew the drill: She’d worked at the same orphanage a couple years earlier after graduating college. When she returned with her husband the second time, the couple offered respite services to staff on the weekends — that is, they’d stay with the kids so the employees could get some rest. “That was where our hearts began to be cultivated,” Jillana says.

I have a lot of hope that our small and humble offerings collectively add up to something greater than themselves.

jillana goble

Founder, Every Child Oregon

The couple was on the plane heading home to New York when they began thinking about how they could help at-risk youth, such as those families who were affected by mental illness, domestic violence, or incarceration, in their own community. They found out that many children in those situations end up in foster care. “So, my husband and I, at age 25, with exactly zero parenting experience and no biological kids, signed up to do respite through a local agency.”

But the agency had other plans.

“They told us we’d be really great regular foster parents,” Jillana recalls, “So we said yes.” It would be the first of many yeses for the couple, whose story of caring for children continues to this day. “I became a mom through fostering, birth, and adoption — in that order,” she says.

Building a family

The couple fostered their first child in 2002, a boy in early elementary school who lived with them for a year. When he left their care, the Gobles lost track of him; however, they reconnected eight years ago and are now in each other’s lives. “We count him as our oldest,” Jillana says.

The Gobles went on to have two biological daughters of their own. A few years later, after relocating to Portland, Oregon, Jillana called to inquire about fostering there. “I was just gathering information,” she says. A week later, a call came: A 6-month-old baby boy needed a family. “We said yes to him,” Jillana says. 

That was 15 years ago, and it began an extraordinary relationship between Jillana and Luke, their foster child — whom they later adopted — and the boy’s biological mother, one that continues to this day. A few years after that, Jillana and Luke were asked to pick up a baby from the hospital just for the weekend. That baby is now their 12-year-old adoptive son. In all, the Gobles have five children they call their own.  

Jillana says the journey that has brought her children into her life has enriched her. However, she’s honest about the challenges that accompany fostering and adoption, and the impact of those choices on a family’s dynamics. “We get called, we’re asked to say yes, and we really don’t know what we’re saying yes to,” she says. “It’s been fulfilling on a personal level, but there are days when it’s discouraging. Even though there are moments I wouldn’t choose, they have great impact.”

Every Child Oregon

In 2012, Jillana founded Every Child Oregon (previously Embrace Oregon), a movement that supports the foster care system by helping reduce the impact of the trauma on foster children in a variety of ways. That includes supplying tangibles, such as clothes, shoes, and personal-care items; educating the community about the need for foster families; supporting foster families through resources and initiatives like the Foster Parents’ Night Out program; and even conducting office makeovers to make the spaces where children go between placements more welcoming and comforting.

“I have a lot of hope that our small and humble offerings collectively add up to something greater than themselves,” Jillana says. “That is the story of Every Child Oregon, and that is the story of what I hope is happening underneath the roof of our home.”

May is National Foster Care Month. For more information, visit www.childwelfare.gov/fostercaremonth.