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Foster Care Alumni of America: Destined to Serve
by Ginny Stephan
Are you ready to break out of the mold, set a new course and build a strong and lasting heritage for our children? Yes, of course, many of us could be guests on the next Oprah Winfrey Show, sharing the horror stories of our childhood. We could become passionate, angry foster alumni who hate the system that tried to help better our future. But in doing so, we would do a disservice to millions of kids.
Today, a call is going out to all alumni ready to give back to the foster care community without anger or shame. We owe it to the world to become productive members of the community in which we live. And we owe it to ourselves to stay connected to each other and to the good people who have our best interests at heart.
Foster Care Alumni of America (FCAA) is a community of professional alumni who are ready to serve children now in care as well as the 10 million alumni across this nation. We know that we can make a difference by working together with social service agencies and the many other individuals that help service the foster care community.
Jerry Hobbs, the executive director of Foster Care Alumni, explains the importance of alumni giving back to the community this way: "Our experiences teach us that contributing creates healing‹and we have research to show that our belief is well-founded. We know that the individuals who responsibly serve within the foster care system are deserving of our gratitude and respect. We believe that the foster care systems‹and those who work within the various systems ‹while not perfect, have been maligned for too long. We believe it is long past time for alumni of foster care to speak up‹loud and proud‹to tell our communities, our nation and our policymakers that the individuals and families serving within the foster care system are worthy of respect and support."
Always remember that we alumni have bright futures ahead of us if we choose to make the decisions that lead us on the right path. I am a firm believer that we went through the foster care system for a reason. I know I would not be where I am today if I had not been removed from my biological parents. And now it is time to begin a generation of excellent foster care alumni who are ready to serve the communities that supported us through our difficult years in care.
For more information, please contact Ginny Stephan, Board Vice President,Foster Care Alumni of America, at ginnystephan@msn.com.
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