Ed's Team Donation Page
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This is a hard story to tell, and we aren’t even at liberty to share all of it, but please hang in there. This is a story that needs to be told.
Our friend Susan is a dog trainer who operates a therapy dog service. In 2004, as part of a New Jersey Department of Youth and Family Services program, she had the opportunity to work with Ed, a remarkable 11-year old boy. Ed was remarkable for two reasons: first, because he was a natural with animals; and second, because he’d been living in foster care for 5 years.
Susan and Ed worked together for a year. Like many people in the program, Susan stayed in touch with Ed as he bounced from foster home to foster home, as so many adolescents in foster care do.
In 2008 she asked herself, “What the heck is this kid still doing in foster care. If foster care is where he has to be, maybe I can be a foster parent.”
Susan became Ed’s foster parent, and in 2010 she became his adoptive parent.
This is where the story gets hard.
In his 10+ years in foster care, Ed had moved to 25+ different places he never really could call home. Neglect, trauma, and every type of physical and emotional abuse imaginable were part of his daily routine. The damage done was enormous, much more than Ed could undo on his own, or even with Susan’s help.
When Ed was Ed, everything was fine. But when the wheels came off the cart, they came flying off hard.
The type of trauma that Ed experienced doesn’t go away without intensive expert intervention. But there is hope, and that hope is within sight.
Ed’s treatment team has found a fantastic residential treatment facility at the Justice Resource Institute in Massachusetts. The medical director of the Trauma Center is Bessel van der Kolk, whose groundbreaking work was featured in an article in the New York Times . They are experts in caring for trauma patients, and one of the few places in the country that has experience with Ed’s diagnoses.
This is Ed’s best chance to get back on track, finish high school, and move on to adult life. As you might expect, the residential care Ed needs is very expensive. Unfortunately, the State of New Jersey (which provides Ed’s health insurance as part of the adoption agreement) will not cover the full cost.
The bottom line is that Susan needs to raise $10,000 each month for a program that will last 9 months to a year. We are here to help Susan raise funds to cover a portion of that cost.
We all love Ed, and we decided to share our love of Ed with you.
Any financial contribution you can make would be an enormous help. And if you can’t help financially but can find a way to “Like” our Facebook page and share this story on social media, that will go a long way toward showing Ed that he is not alone in this quest.
Please help us help Susan make sure Ed gets the treatment he needs.
With our biggest hopes and deepest thanks,
Ed’s Team,
Rosemary Heath
Donna Luzzo
Whitney Quesenbery
Rita Rigano
his brother Eric
and his Sheltie, Sheldon
Our friend Susan is a dog trainer who operates a therapy dog service. In 2004, as part of a New Jersey Department of Youth and Family Services program, she had the opportunity to work with Ed, a remarkable 11-year old boy. Ed was remarkable for two reasons: first, because he was a natural with animals; and second, because he’d been living in foster care for 5 years.
Susan and Ed worked together for a year. Like many people in the program, Susan stayed in touch with Ed as he bounced from foster home to foster home, as so many adolescents in foster care do.
In 2008 she asked herself, “What the heck is this kid still doing in foster care. If foster care is where he has to be, maybe I can be a foster parent.”
Susan became Ed’s foster parent, and in 2010 she became his adoptive parent.
This is where the story gets hard.
In his 10+ years in foster care, Ed had moved to 25+ different places he never really could call home. Neglect, trauma, and every type of physical and emotional abuse imaginable were part of his daily routine. The damage done was enormous, much more than Ed could undo on his own, or even with Susan’s help.
When Ed was Ed, everything was fine. But when the wheels came off the cart, they came flying off hard.
The type of trauma that Ed experienced doesn’t go away without intensive expert intervention. But there is hope, and that hope is within sight.
Ed’s treatment team has found a fantastic residential treatment facility at the Justice Resource Institute in Massachusetts. The medical director of the Trauma Center is Bessel van der Kolk, whose groundbreaking work was featured in an article in the New York Times . They are experts in caring for trauma patients, and one of the few places in the country that has experience with Ed’s diagnoses.
This is Ed’s best chance to get back on track, finish high school, and move on to adult life. As you might expect, the residential care Ed needs is very expensive. Unfortunately, the State of New Jersey (which provides Ed’s health insurance as part of the adoption agreement) will not cover the full cost.
The bottom line is that Susan needs to raise $10,000 each month for a program that will last 9 months to a year. We are here to help Susan raise funds to cover a portion of that cost.
We all love Ed, and we decided to share our love of Ed with you.
Any financial contribution you can make would be an enormous help. And if you can’t help financially but can find a way to “Like” our Facebook page and share this story on social media, that will go a long way toward showing Ed that he is not alone in this quest.
Please help us help Susan make sure Ed gets the treatment he needs.
With our biggest hopes and deepest thanks,
Ed’s Team,
Rosemary Heath
Donna Luzzo
Whitney Quesenbery
Rita Rigano
his brother Eric
and his Sheltie, Sheldon
Organizer
Whitney Quesenbery
Organizer
Milford, NJ
