I will always have incredible amounts of respect for those who opt to foster children. Through the compassion and caring in their hearts, they provide kids with a stable, loving environment while they wait to find their forever homes.
Of course, all children deserve nothing short of the best. In an ideal world, there wouldn’t be a single little boy or little girl growing up without a family, or the love and security that families offer.
Sadly, we don’t live in the real world, and there are far too many children who spend the majority of their childhood in shelters or foster homes, desperately waiting for the right family to come along and adopt them.
Former teacher Melissa Servetz knows this all too well. As per reports, she’s worked in social services for the past five years, and opened her home to no less than 56 children who needed fostering.
That in and of itself is a beautiful gesture, and one that sets her apart from the crowd for obvious reasons.
“I was single and I was just [like], ‘Why not? Let’s do it. Let’s try to help kids who really don’t have a safe place to call home,’” Melissa told Good Morning America in 2022.
“So I originally started volunteering at one of the children’s homes and that led to me inquiring about adopting and actually fostering first.”
Having fostered an incredible 56 children – mostly toddlers and babies under the age of five – Melissa eventually made an even bigger commitment. According to reports, she first met her daughter, Jade, seven years ago.
“I was teaching in the Tampa Bay area and one of my former parents of my students came up to me and said, ‘Hey, Melissa, I know this woman and she has some children that are living with a non-relative and they need a place to go because they’re being evicted,’” Melissa recalled.
“There was a process when you take in children, so I called my agency and I said, ‘Hey, can you tell me if these two children are on the list?’”
The agency confirmed that the kids could be fostered, and Melissa welcomed them into her home.
She added: “About a week later, I picked up Jade in a parking lot with her case manager. And then a week after that, I transitioned Destiny and it was like [the] most natural thing ever. I remember those days like it was yesterday, picking them up and just carrying them.”
That might have been that if Jade and Destiny’s birth mother hadn’t of fallen pregnant again. Ultimately, she gave birth to two further children, boys Matthew and Emerson, and Melissa soon realized that she didn’t have the heart to keep them separated from their sisters.
So she decided to adopt all four of the siblings!
Speaking to GMA, Melissa explained that the kids regularly go to therapy to help them process the trauma and uncertainty they’ve experienced in their young lives.
“I want them to remember that I picked them… and I have, in my opinion, the best children in the world,” she added.
See more on Melissa’s journey in the video below:
If you were moved by this story, consider reading about the Texas student who put his life on pause to adopt a baby he found in a trash pile!
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