Finding stories to support the Friends of Children’s campaign to establish a Florida Baptist Children’s Home in Alachua County wasn’t hard. They are everywhere — on the FBCH web site, in their newsletters, and videos – beautiful faces and voices of formerly sad young lives brightened because there was a place for them to go where they would feel wanted and loved when they couldn’t live at home anymore.

There’s the story of Desiree, a junior at Southeastern University in Lakeland and 2008 salutatorian of her Polk County high school. After her mother died when she was seven her disabled father couldn’t manage as a single parent. He became so neglectful and abusive that Desiree took it upon herself to ask the Department of Children and Families to find a safe place for her and her little sisters to live. It wasn’t long before that meant living apart. Desiree even spent time in a shelter before her case worker was able to place her in a cottage at the Lakeland FBCH campus. Within a few months her sisters had joined her.

I could go on, but Desiree said it best in an interview with a writer for the FBCH’s Sharing magazine several months after her placement.

“And we’re very, very happy,” Desireé said with a smile and tears in her eyes. “Because
this is a normal place! We have a safe place to live, where we’re not being taken
advantage of and where we’re respected and God’s rules are the rules. The rules of the
house are based on the Bible, and that’s what I like because they’re moral, good values.
And my sisters are learning the same things!”

For every Desiree and her sisters at the Lakeland, Jacksonville or four other FBCH campuses across the state, there’s an anonymous Alachua, Gilchrist, Marion, Levy, or Dixie county sibling group split up because there wasn’t a single-family foster home willing or able to take them as a unit. A campus here would also provide a home for difficult to place older children and teens who frequently get bounced around from placement to placement.

Desiree had done her share of bouncing before she came to the FBCH.

So many people who are in shelter care or foster care would die to be in this place
(Florida Baptist Children’s Homes). And people take it for granted all the time. I don’t.
I’ve been in a horrible foster home, I’ve been in a hor­rible home situation, I’ve been in a
shelter. I’m soooo [sic] grateful to be here.

Supporting the Yerman Friends of Children campaign to establish a FBCH campus in Alachua County is just one of the many ways you can better the lives of foster children in our area. You can start by telling your Facebook friends about the 5K run & walk, forming a team at work, church, in your neighborhood or among your children’s friends; and making a donation to the Friends of Children.

And if you want to do more, the FBCH is always in need of new foster and adoptive families to love and care for the abused, abandoned, and neglected children in our area. Maybe that’s where Desiree’s story will eventually lead you. As you ponder that big journey, please consider walking or running and giving to the Yerman Friends of Children campaign along the way.