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Children keep arriving, all with the same No. 1 need

A Thonotosassa agency wants nothing more than to send babies and kids to loving, nurturing homes.

By KAREN DAVISON
Published November 4, 2005

NEW TAMPA - The day Faith Lange found out that in-vitro fertilization hadn't worked for her, her mother happened into an Amoco station and saw a little card on a wall that said, "Take a Blessing." A brown envelope held information about Everyday Blessings, a foster and adoption agency.

That was the beginning of Lange's connection with Sister Claire LeBoeuf, founder of the nonprofit agency in Thonotosassa.

Lange, who lives in the New Tampa area, wanted to know how long adoption would take. LeBoeuf asked how quickly she and her husband, Bradley, could start. The couple began preparation classes for foster and adoptive parents.

"It scares the bejeebers out of you," Lange said of the classes, which present worst-case scenarios.

They took a chance and - after background checks, home inspections and lots of paperwork - became foster parents to children they hoped to adopt.

Mercedes was 21/2 years old; her sister Elexis, 11/2. Mercedes would put her baby doll in a closet and say, "Baby cry." Elexis constantly held on to Faith Lange. They had been in 11 foster homes.

A year later the adoption was final. The girls, now 8 and 7, thrive in their home at the edge of New Tampa. Faith Lange tells her two daughters, "You didn't come from my tummy. You came from my heart. I waited a long time for you."

She takes them as "visual aids" when she speaks with prospective parents, and the girls visit the children who live at Everyday Blessings. Second-grader Mercedes tells children waiting for adoption, "Some mommies in the world are very, very nice."

The Langes are adopting a 3-year-old boy who has been with them since he was 5 days old. They also take in other foster children, frequently babies of drug-addicted mothers who generally stay less than three months. Many babies go back to their birth parents.

How does she deal with letting the children go?

"I try to emotionally detach myself in that regard," she said, by focusing on the medical care they need. Yet in their nightly prayers, her family names all the children who've ever lived in their house.

"The children come daily, daily, daily," says , the Catholic nun who founded Everyday Blessings. "There is a tremendous need for foster parents."

She speaks from experience. Besides overseeing adoptions, Everyday Blessings places children in foster homes. LeBoeuf's seven social workers have to find the homes in an already-saturated system. The agency was recently managing 62 children in 16 foster homes.

Some of the foster children assigned to Everyday Blessings stay at the Thonotosassa property. The agency can keep up to 30 children in a residential program. Most are groups of siblings who would otherwise live in separate foster homes. And most are 8 and younger.

The concrete block building has seven little "apartments," each made up of two bedrooms and a bathroom. Four or five children sleep in a bedroom in bunk beds. One of seven live-in caregivers has the room next door.

"I'm more like an aunt babysitting," said Carol Evens, a social worker and one of the seven caregivers. "I'm here 4:30 p.m. to 8:30 a.m. and all day Saturday and Sunday." She said the arrangement "provides more children the ability to have consistent parenting. That's what really turns the child around."

Weekdays, the children attend on-site day care or go to public school and return to Everyday Blessings for afterschool care. Evens gets them ready for dinner, after which she and the children carry out the same routine as parents and children everywhere: homework, baths, Dragon Tales, bedtime.

Weekends, Evens gives the children ordinary life experiences. They play in the park, shop at Wal-Mart, go to the beach, eat at IHOP.

"I'm amazed at how many 17-year-old foster kids have never ordered in a restaurant," she said.

LeBoeuf said the turnover rate for caregivers is "not that big." But it's "not that easy to find people who have a missionary spirit and who love children and put children's interest first."

The caregivers receive room and board, one weekday night and every seventh weekend off, and a stipend. A petty cash allowance pays for the weekend activities, but Evens sometimes adds her own money.

The profit agency gets 80 percent of its funding from the state through contracts with Hillsborough Kids Inc. The rest comes from community support.

The money is needed. Recent building improvements put a crimp in the budget - $39,000 for a new septic system and $28,000 to replace the air conditioning system and make electrical upgrades. The well also needs improvements.

As far as "goods for the children, they have everything," LeBoeuf said, but the agency can always use diapers, baby wipes, and socks and underwear for ages 3 and up.

A child may stay overnight at Everyday Blessings or, like one group of five siblings, 21/2 years. Once they arrive, they stay - no more moving from home to home - until a decision is made to return them to their birth parents, place them with relatives or move to terminate parental rights.

For the last, Everyday Blessings places the children with foster parents like the Langes who want to adopt them - a decided risk to the heart.

"It could always happen," LeBoeuf said, "that the birth parents will get their act together or relatives come out of the woodwork."

Add to this that 99 percent of children in foster care have been neglected, abused or abandoned, LeBoeuf said, and the process could take years.

Everyday Blessings currently oversees about 165 children who were placed with 71 foster-while-waiting-to-adopt families. LeBoeuf said that "many, many" of the children have been in the homes for at least a year; some for three years.

LeBoeuf, who resigned as Everyday Blessings' director in September, will keep working for the children by overseeing the building of the Village at Everyday Blessings, a community of adoptive families and senior citizens.

As for prospective foster parents, Faith Lange has a message for them: "You'll fall in love. You may think you want one child or you only want a baby," she said. Then you'll find yourself saying, " "He's so cute. I want to take him."' That's when "Claire will tell you he has four other brothers. It pulls on your heartstrings."

Residential: Up to 30 children at a time

Foster homes: 62 children in 16 homes

Foster-to-adopt homes: 165 children in 71 homes

[Last modified November 3, 2005, 08:47:07]