Zander's Life Matters

We are Richard & Chris Cavallo & would lay down our lives for this precious little boy we love so much! Would you fight to keep your grandchild if there were no way your child could care for him/her? Would you let them be taken from you just because you don't have the money for a good lawyer? If the answer is no, then PLEASE READ about the nightmare we are going through. Could you possibly donate $5 or $10 to help us keep him in the ONLY home he remembers living in?! 
If you have any questions, please ask! Court has been postponed until September 29th & we need help NOW!

Maine Dept. of Human Services (which I will refer to as DHS from now on) became involved because of my daughter & her boyfriend’s heavy drug use, Zander's neglect & illegal activity in December of 2014 when Zander was only 11 months old. He was voluntarily placed with us by his parents because they knew they were going to jail, DHS came up they came up with what they called a "safety plan." Due to the way DHS made it sound & us never dealing with anything like this before we thought this would prevent Zander from being placed back in that environment. DHS advised us to file for Guardianship in Probate Court, which we did. But, because he was considered safe now that he was with us, no emergency guardianship was granted, We had to wait for a court date for a hearing.

During the 90 days they were in county jail, my daughter made us believe she was going to get clean & come stay with us to work on being a mother. We even paid to move her belongings to our home. Within days after her & her boyfriend got out of jail, she changed her mind & began using again. She came here to get Zander so she should get her “benefits” back. We were then informed through local police & eventually DHS that legally she could take him! This was heartbreaking for us, but we had no choice but to let him go back while DHS “monitored” their attempt at sobriety.

In May of 2015, I got a call from someone babysitting him that my daughter didn’t show up to pick him up & could I come get him. I recommended we call his DHS worker to see what to do. (I now wish I hadn’t!)  I filed again for emergency guardianship & it was granted. But, at the same time, DHS filed in district court for protective custody due to abandonment & that was granted also. When I told DHS that we were granted temporary guardianship, they said the protective custody ruling took precedence & we had no reason to doubt it at that time.

During the next several months we had to do what DHS asked of us to become licensed foster parents-YES! - I said we had jump through all kinds of hoops & red tape to try to be foster parents to keep  our own grandchild!!! (New Hampshire & other states do not require this if the child is your own flesh & blood!) DHS TOLD US IF WE DIDN’T GET LICENSED, WE COULD NOT KEEP OUR OWN GRANDSON! During this process, we still had a court date for guardianship in probate court in August of 2015. I asked Zander’s case worker & everyone else from DHS who had been involved with our case several times to attend the hearing, not one of them showed up! My daughter didn’t come, but our grandson’s father did come from jail (he was back in jail again) with his court appointed lawyer. His lawyer tried to get the case dismissed due to DHS supposedly has custody. However, the judge made them aware that he had talked to the district court judge & in fact probate did had jurisdiction over district in such cases. He chose at that time to continue the case to give Zander’s parents more time to get their act together.

We’ve had Zander most of his little life & have worked through every question, home study & probing into our background & every little detail about us since Richard & I have been children! None of the departments communicate with each other, we’ve had workers changed on us & they continue to ask us to do things that are unnecessary. We were told in April of this year that our “Foster License” was going to be given to us soon. The lady who told us that died unexpectedly & they called us in for another one of their meetings.  One of the supervisors hat was supposed to be there was not & we could tell by their demeanor something wasn’t right. They poked & prodded us more & made it sound like we would not be getting our license. This made no sense  because they told us in front of our Pastor none of them an any problems or issues with how we are raising our grandson! They lie to us & try scare tactics like we are the unfit parents. Keep in mind, they let his parents have him back only to continue to use drugs & abandon him!

We came home in disbelief. Can you imagine having your son or daughter addicted to drugs & alcohol, having child protective services place that child with your family, then telling you basically your family isn’t good enough after bonding with him or her, loving, caring & raising them like your own?  Well, we can’t either!!! We remembered Probate court still had our case open & called them for a hearing to get permanent guardianship. We didn’t even have to go before the judge because the parental rights were terminated & we were granted legal permanent guardianship on June 22nd & thought Zander is ours to adopt now! DHS is upset because they don’t look good on paper & other bureaucratic nonsense. They will not acknowledge the judge’s ruling in probate & are taking us to district court to undermine the probate judge’s ruling! 

We can no longer do this on our own & have hired family lawyer who has experience with these kind of cases. We have been advised we can legal costs can go as high as $15K.   We have already invested a few thousand into our legal matters already.
I (Chris) runa a small business & have lost a lot of money by not being able to work due to research, meetings, phone calls, etc.   Any help is appreciated even if it is only $5 or $10.  Please  pray for our family, we love the Lord & feel attacked spiritually by these people. They want to take him away from us at the next court date! Please help us because Zander’s life matters!