Help Us Keep Our Nephews Out of Foster Care

Sometimes things are thrown in your path that you had no way of anticipating, but you don’t hesitate and take the scary uncharted journey anyways.

Last week my husband and I had to become emergency temporary guardians for our F I V E nephews. We already have 4 children, but to prevent our nephews from going “into the system” and becoming foster children we welcomed them into our home. When the dust settled and my husband and I laid in bed that night we began discussing and realizing the challenges that were ahead. We tried to problem solve and talk through most of the issues we felt would arise, but together as a team we could make it work.

The days to come included calling schools to get them transferred to the district we lived in, hair cuts, school shopping, new shoes, coordinating transportation for two special needs children to get to their specific schools etc. We knew what had to be done. We didn’t however fully prepare for the realization that this safety plan for the children meant we got no state help. This plan which is best for the children meant we needed to depend on our own income to support five additional preteen/teenage boys! Which seems like an unrealistic expectation, but the generosity of our friends, family, coworkers, and community has helped us get them settled in our home and in their new schools the last week.

We now come here to ask for additional assistance because my husbands income has been put on hold because he travels for work. He doesn’t feel it is fair for me to care for all 9 kids alone, so he’s UNPAID taken time off. I took 2 weeks of leave as an ICU RN draining my PTO bank to get the children settled. We took them in to provide them with stability and love that they needed in this hard time but we now ask if anyone is willing to help us make ends meet so we can continue to provide this for them. If we are unable to keep the children a court case would be opened and they would be sent to foster homes. Any assistance is greatly appreciated.