I am Danielle and four years ago my parents decided to add a child to our family. That single child turned into a sibling set of three. As a family we decided to adopt through the California Foster Care system. We learned that over 200,000 children in Foster Care are released for adoption and waiting for "forever" homes. We  adopted two boys, brothers, ages one and a newborn. Four years later their half sister joined us. Prior to coming home she spent four months in the NICU at Loma Linda Medical Center, she was born in a bathroom at 26 weeks gestation, breech and drug addicted. She struggled to survive for months. She has overcome monumental challenges like two heart surgeries, a collapsed lung, months on a respirator, abdomenal surgery, hearing loss and Cerebral Palsy. She is doing amazingly well today meeting her milestones and defying all medical predictions. She is just one example of the tens of thousands of children in the California Foster Care System.

When my parents were training to be an adoptive family they met several foster children. One was an adult that had aged out before finding a forever family. He was in the military. All he wanted was a place to keep his personal things while he was abroad. Another had earned a college degree and shared that his greatest sadness was that he had no one to share his success with. Lastly, a young teen that had a lifelong struggle lamented that "I don't look good on paper, do the best you can" to his social worker in her attempts to find a home for him.  These are children advocating for themselves for a family. No matter the age they all want someone to call family. This is a basic human need.  Think of your own child, sitting on a court pew, waiting for a stranger to decide your fate, no familiar face in the audience.

We adopted through Seneca Families, formerly Kinship, of Anaheim Hills. Seneca is a nonprofit agency that works with the Counties in California to help The Department of Children and Family Services with the adoption of Foster Children. Most of the children are sibling sets, drug or alcohol exposed, minorities, and some have disabilites, making adoption into a family more challenging. Seneca provides eduation to perspective families, home studies, foster training and placement services. They provide ongoing support to the families they work with during and after adoption.  There are no fees to the families that adopt.

Seneca relies on private donations and a small amount of Federal funding. America has not eliminated our orphanges we have just renamed them. Please help Kinship to continue to provide services to the most vulnerable of our children because every child deserves a family.

I have chosen Seneca Families as my Bat Mitzvah project as I cannot imagine a more deserving group!

Danielle Bloom, 12 years old. Called to Bat Mitzvah on October 15th, 2016