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I am writing on behalf of UMFS. I would love the opportunity to share with the community my experience as a foster care and adoptive mother. We are in desperate need of more foster homes within the area, I truly would love nothing more than to share the goodness of our story and the life changing impact it has made on our lives. 

Have you ever had the desire to make a change in the world? What about leaving a lasting imprint on the lives of those in your community? Let’s talk about foster care. As a UMFS employee, I could remind you of all the statistics. Over 5,400 kids are in care in Virginia. More than 1,600 of those children are waiting to be adopted. However, as a foster care and adoptive mother, I’m going to share with you a world that is beyond statistics. While it’s easy to get wrapped up in the numbers, I want to remind you that there is a face behind each of those looming statistics. As I think back on my last 4 years as a foster parent, I can only come up with one way to describe it, “life changing, not life limiting.”

Its natural as humans to think about all the reasons why you “can’t” become a foster parent, it’s a big ask, but let’s talk about why you can. When signing up to become a foster parent I knew that I would be helping those in need, but I never understood the depths of that need. Just like you, I had heard the good, the bad and the ugly. Most of the time it felt like people would put an emphasis on the ugly. However, I want you to see the goodness of foster care. I never understood that each child, no matter the length of their stay, would leave a life-altering impact on my life, all while I was being their home away from home.

I never knew that I would develop an unwavering love for these children and their parents. I never knew their stories would become intertwined with my story and together we would write a powerful ending all about second chances. I said yes to giving these children a home and in turn it truly felt like we changed the world. I say all of this, because in a world where we are so caught up on the “story” and the statistics of those in our community, we forget that it is not fictional. There are real people involved. These people could be your neighbors, friends, students, teachers or employees. Our community needs us more than ever to read the story and become a part of it. They need you to make the change and become a foster parent with UMFS, so together we can become the unwavering champions that our community so desperately needs.

Carson McDonald
Farmville