Did you know that most children wait approximately three years before they’re finally adopted into a family? Although, with family dynamics changing, and thus, the demand for adoption becoming higher than ever before, it’s still critical that children in adoption and foster systems are placed in a stable environment as quickly as possible.
Single dad, Lamont Thomas, is one of millions of foster and adoptive parents. What gave him such a heart of gold? It all started when he saw how difficult it was for his friend’s child to go through the foster system. So, from 2000 to 2018, Thomas had adopted a total of five children, one named Michael, who is now in his twenties. Then over the next 15 years, Thomas has fostered over 30 children. As a father of two biological children, Thomas knew he had what it took to care and nurture the children he adopted and fostered.
Eventually, there came a time when Thomas was an empty nester. He thought for sure his time fostering and adopting children was done with as he was getting older and already had helped raised dozens of children.
However, then he heard a story about five neglected siblings ages five, four, three, two, and one who desperately needed a home. With how the foster and adoption systems work, it’s not uncommon that siblings get placed under different roofs with different families. In fact, at the time, the five siblings were divided among four different homes. Thomas couldn’t fathom that reality for the young children, so he petitioned to get all five children under his care to give them stability, and he was successful.
Before fostering the children, Thomas, who works as a caterer never thought he’d be back in the foster game.
“I didn’t think it was this,” Thomas responded when asked if fostering the five young children was in his plans. In fact, the now-father of five hasn’t had the opportunity to go fishing in a while; his hands are a little busy in the meantime!
But Thomas wouldn’t want to have it any other way. He admits he “was fighting to keep back the tears” everyday thinking about his five foster children, all the way up until the day he adopted them as his own in October of 2019.
Now the five siblings will be raised under Thomas’s care until they grow into happy, independent adults, just like the rest of his adopted children!
“I don’t believe that I would be the person that I am today without the morals that [Thomas] instilled in me, the family, the extended family that I have now,” said his previously-adopted child, Michael, who now works as a nurse.
Thomas’s loving heart is changing so many lives. Tune in below to hear more about the story!
