Bringing Hope, Joy, and Success to 4 Foster Kids and More

Don't miss this heart-warming story in American Girl Magazine! Finally, in the midst of so much tragic and absurd world news, here's what only two individuals can do to bring hope, joy, and success to those in need.

"My daddy and I are very different, but we’re a lot alike, too. We both love animals. We like to help others. And we were both in foster care as kids. Foster care is a system set up to care for kids when their own parents can’t. Six years ago, my brother Makai and I were in foster care for three months. During that time, we lived with three different sets of foster parents. Then we got adopted.

When Makai and I were first adopted, everything we had was stuffed into trash bags, one for each of us.

My daddy and I do lots of things together, like caring for the animals on our little farm. We have ducks, chickens, goats, and two dogs. We also work to help kids who are in foster care today.

When Makai and I were first adopted, everything we had was stuffed into trash bags, one for each of us. That made my daddy feel really bad. When he was a kid in foster care and moving from place to place, he also carried the few things he owned in a trash bag. He says it made him feel like he wasn’t worth much. He thinks kids should be treated better than that.

So my daddy started a charity to help kids in foster care feel better about themselves. We provide nice new bags and backpacks for kids to travel with as they move around."

Read the rest at
http://www.americangirl.com/explore/articles/see-how-one-family-is-making-a-difference/

American Girl, November/December 2015



In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Discarding

Discarding

On the way to the coast’s town dump
Junk in the back jostles in the turn.
Dark blue clouds drop heavy rain down.

I pull onto the mired dirt road
Past the leaning one-story screens
Where dark birds hover and wrens perch

But launch to flight as I shift reverse;
Backing up my van to the trash heap.
I get out and step in the hogged mud,

Throw out the old bed banisters
A rusted chair, worn shirts and ‘genes,’
All my grouchy ire and anger;

Yes and my enlarged head tilted
With church dogma, loads of heavy fact,
And too many years of clouded regret.

Driving home—so empty and satisfied.



In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox


First published in the Tipton Poetry Journal,
and in the poetry anthology, Dark Energy, by Diminuendo Press