This encouraging letter from President Bush was undoubtedly heartwarming and hopeful. It was in response to receiving my book “My Five Moms,” my story of being a teenager in foster care. It was at this time that I felt called to try to make a difference in foster care, and today it has become my mission and my purpose. The motivating factor was that I was a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) to a teenage girl in foster care in north Texas. She had thirteen different case workers and almost as many placements all over Texas. I attribute my success to having had good foster care placements (only two different ones) in a family environment in the neighborhood where I grew up, providing the necessary stability.
I certainly have a book’s worth of new material with the journey I have been on since I wrote “My Five Moms.” I am considering this because I have only a handful of books left before republishing. It will require some editing because several changes have taken place since I wrote my story: my brother, Jay, and my sister Vicky has passed, I was volunteering with the Ebby House in Dallas as a respite at the time, and I had completed the five-year journey as a (CASA) to my girl when she “aged-out” of the system. The lack of foster homes was and still is why I was inspired to make a difference. So, it was shortly after this letter that we received our non-profit status and began fundraising for our cause.
I could author another book about the adventure of building a village (Geary Foster Foundations, a foster home community in north Texas) that began six years ago. When the village is complete, I might. At this time, I may add “Bonus Blogs” to the republished book. My books are for sale on our “store page” on our website, and my blogs, which I have written over the past five years, are published on our website as well, www.gearyfosterfoundations.org. The story continues because we are building the third of eight homes planned before completion.
I’m not getting any younger, and as my very “honest” husband said when I started this journey, “Are you sure you’re not a little long in the tooth to tackle this?” 😊 God didn’t think so, and he’s been in control of the success we have accomplished so far. My co-founder, Colleen Geary Patton, is still hanging in there with me, and I have a board of professional women who believe in me and support our mission of bettering the world of foster care. We still raise every dollar to do this, we remain a 100% volunteer 501C3 organization, and we continue to be blessed with the support of churches, individuals, businesses, and foundations, as well as being grant recipients of several foundations who believe in us. I tend to be borderline between being persistent and being a pest for our cause, but I don’t apologize for being this way when it comes to making a difference in the life of a foster child. We have helped many children in our two foster homes that operate as “normal families” in a healthy county environment with loving foster parents who share in our mission. May God Bless us all.
Susie
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