Let’s set it up
Yesterday on my way to work I cried. Big splotchy tears that hung onto my new blouse and threatened to smudge my mascara. But I wasn’t sad, I was overwhelmed with relief.
Yesterday the child I have been advocating for since February found permanent placement in a loving and familiar home. He is no longer considered a “foster kid”. I will no longer have to hear the jerk judge call him “drug baby”. He is no longer in the government’s minimalistic care. He is with a relative, and she loves him like he’s her own. It is the absolute best scenario the kid could have had.
Some people have questioned why I do this. Why volunteer for this, it’s so sad. Well it’s not any less sad if you don’t involve yourself. The situations occur with or without you. There’s always going to be a mother that gives birth to a drug addicted baby. There will always be a father that abuses his children and locks them out of the house when he gets upset. There will always be parents that struggle with the needs of a child. But when a CASA volunteer gets involved in a foster child’s life the odds of that child getting out of the system and being placed in a good home is TWICE as likely. CASA volunteers speak up for the kid that doesn’t have the privilege to tell the judge and every other government employee what they want their life to look like, who they want to live with. I volunteer to be the voice for kids that are essentially voiceless. I also volunteer because of an experience I had a few years ago.
I want you to meet my best friend. I’ll change his name to protect his identity. Let’s call him Jack (I’ve always like that name). Jack and I met when I worked at the YMCA while attending college. His story is tragically similar to so many other kids out there that struggle with dysfunctional families. Jack was sweet, funny, and immensely entertaining. He once told me when he grew up he either wanted to become the drummer of Rage Against the Machine or a Marine. He decided one day that we were best friends and wasn’t concerned about what the other kids would think of him being best friends with a boring adult. He was awesome.
I knew Jack for two years and during that time his mom got a new boyfriend. Jack didn’t talk about him much. But he slowly started behaving differently with authority figures (including me) and other kids. He became difficult. Other kids called him a bully. He lashed out at the YMCA staff that tried to talk to him about his actions or punish him for being mean to the other kids. One day, he got so mad he screamed at the top of his lungs when another staff member said they were going to write-up his behavior and give it to his mom. He ran out of the gymnasium and out of the building. YMCA staff are not supposed to chase children once they leave the building, but rather, call the police. But he didn’t get far and I stepped outside and yelled for him to just talk to me.
I did get him to come inside. We spent the remainder of the day on the bench right outside the gymnasium. He cried on my shoulder as he told me that if he got in trouble mom’s boyfriend would beat him until he couldn’t sit anymore. He said it’s happened before. He couldn’t eat at the dinner table because his body hurt too bad. It was the first time I had to call the children’s protective services hotline.
I learned more disturbing things about the family after I hotlined, but it doesn’t seem fair to Jack to post them for all to see. My point is, I do what I do because of Jack. Because he showed me there are kids out there that need help; that need to be heard. Kids that don’t have anyone else and would go unnoticed if they didn’t have someone to listen to them.
Excuse me, as I step off my soap box now.
The deed
(FYI: I counted both blankets I made as good deeds, leading me to good ole seventeen.)
17. Helped a child get out of foster care.
Other deeds worth mentioning
I’m sure everyone knows about typhoon Haiyan that ravaged the Philipines last week. They are saying the death toll was risen to around 10,000. Pretty devastating. I talked to a woman at a local grocery store that is Filipino. She was collecting donations for the typhoon because she had friends and relatives that were “unaccounted for”.
18. Donate money to natural disaster relief efforts.
Also, on Sunday me and my fiance stopped by a gas station for some juice. There was a man there that looked homeless, mumbling to himself. This is pretty common, we live in the inner-city of St. Louis. What wasn’t common was that, while reaching for a beer out of the cooler, the man dropped his cane and a few cents and was struggling to pick them up before Jon walked over and helped him.
Embarassed, I tried to help once I knew what was going on but by then it was fixed. I was happy to ignore the man, as awful as that sounds, because he seemed unstable. I get wary around strangers, especially men. But regardless of who he was, he dropped something he was having trouble picking up, and that’s all Jon saw. Kudos to you, Jon. Reason number 123,785,906 I love you.
Resources
To learn more about CASA volunteers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzGXyzP_CBw
To donate to Typhoon Haiyan relief efforts you can go to: care.org/typhoon-haiyan
libbylbishop 