We started fostering in 2005. You know, we wanted to help where we could. We've adopted five of our placements. So, the first one, and then the sibling group, and then the final sibling that we only learned about later. We went through Boys Town to do our foster care license. Right out of the gate, after we finished our foster care classes, our daughter was placed with us. So, we actually have an older daughter who's 30, that we adopted in 2006.

And then we run into the boys, and they were babies. Not only were they babies, they were boys, and we started out with girls. We had older teen girls. Little boys and teen girls are different. Soon as we finished our foster care classes for the third time, we're just going to foster some older kids. We have a room, you know, that we can, an extra room, we can put an older kid in. The day they called us and said, there's a sibling, will you take the sibling in? And we took the sibling boy in at six years old, and he has cystic fibrosis, and they just went over a whole bunch of stuff, and we're like, he's family.

Yeah, we'll take him in. It was a really welcoming household. It made me feel like home, like, basically from the start. I think it was really good. It was really welcoming when I got here. It's nice being here. Coming and adopting was a really good thing for all of us.

I'm lucky that we could find a house that worked for us, and all of us come together as biological brothers and get to stick together. You're helping out a child, and Boys Town helps you to put that family together. And yeah, it's just nice to be able to help out kids to grow to their fullest that you can help them be. It was not what I expected. It wasn't, you know, you hear a lot of stories before you get into it about what kind of a system it is and who you're going to work with and who you're going to run into, and it always sounds like it's very intimidating and might not be worth all the time and effort, but it truly is. It's worth the time and effort that you put into it. To see how you can change these kids' lives is just, there's nothing like it.

So if you have an inkling that that's maybe what you want to do, is have an impact on kids, young people, for the better, then definitely fostering and adoption is the way to go. Especially through Boys Town, because they help you through every part of the foster caring. I would definitely recommend adoption because there are kids out there who don't have a permanent home, just jumping around. Having a nice, loving home would be very important to a lot of people. It means a lot to have a home like this. I would really encourage people who are looking into foster parents and maybe adoption even, if they can. Don't let a child that has ADHD, a couple emotional scars, be the reason that you don't want to foster because you don't want to run into that child.

They're just children, and Boys Town will help you through it.