At my mom's office, a foster care kid, James, was an intern. His story is truly inspiring. My mom learned about the horrors of foster care system he went through. He has almost no money and he got himself into a special full scholarship program at Brandice University.
He had nowhere to go for a Thanksgiving dinner, so my mom invited him to come to our Thanksgiving. He is a smart nice guy. We went to the park and played football and came home for our dinner. That thanksgiving was perhaps the most interesting I have experienced.
He told us about his struggles in foster care. He is black and openly gay. He said that he was turned away from some religious foster care homes because of this. He has lived in 13 different foster care homes from age 13 to 18. He said his current foster brother will probably only get a tuna sandwich for dinner, so we packed up some leftovers for him.
From what I learned about the foster care system, it's completely socially unjust and needs improvement. It makes me easy how easy my life is compared to less fortunate people. James made it to a great college, and worked himself out of the Foster Care system, but the vast majority don't. For every success story of this sort, there are many more of the opposite nature. The whole system sets people up for failure and as better off people, we have to do our best to change that.
James and his Foster brother are coming to Thanksgiving next year.
Wow, that is a very inspiring story. I completely agree with you that the Foster Care System is unjust and sets people up for failure. You do have to understand that working in a Foster home must be difficult; you meet children who have very sad stories to tell, you can't become too attached to a child because at any time they could get adopted and leave your life forever.
ReplyDeleteThis story just shows how incredable the USA is, especially NY; even if you have lead this unfortunate life and you are very poor, you can still turn it around and go to top schools and break the unorganized, very problematic situation that you were born into.
I was sucked into your story as soon as I started reading. It's great how you include anecdotes about your life in your blog, and not just write repetitive reading responses all the time. It gives your blog more depth and including life experiences just makes your writing that more interesting. This particular story was very inspiring. Really good job
ReplyDeleteYour story was amazing. The story was uplifting and well written. Writing about your personal life on your blog is a good idea, especially when it is about a great story from your life.
ReplyDeleteI found your post very inspiring. I have done community service helping people less fortunate and something that I notice is that although people help them, we often forget that they are normal people just like us and should be treated just the same. I found it shocking that a foster home would turn away a child for any reason other than if the child was dangerous to himself or others. I liked how you included your real-life experience getting to know someone who knew what it's like to be a foster child with no real home. This post shows how much you understand the idea of respect for all people.
ReplyDeleteThe story is really touching, it makes me want to cry. And i mean what could be wrong with him if he is just the same as everyone else. He probably had more troubles than anyone else, considering he lived in 13 different homes in a matter of 5 years. But he had never given up on his life, like some other people may do when they feel harrased.
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