When it comes to families, there’s no one size fits all — and that’s especially true when it comes to foster care. One pair of foster parents with Easterseals UCP in Wilmington is a perfect example of that.
In North Carolina, there are about 15,000 kids in foster care.
Yolanda Blount-Wood has a lot of love to give. She’s been a foster mom since 2017, and with the need for foster families on the rise in North Carolina, her help has been quite literally life-changing.
“There are kids every day coming into the system,” Blount-Wood said. “And as we see society changing, there are more and more families needing assistance.”
She’s stepping in to help these children feel a new sense of support, love and fulfillment.
“When you have a child who's faced challenges, just even being able to go I feel good about myself is sometimes hard,” Blount-Wood said. “Just celebrating what they feel is positive, the little things.”
But it’s not just Blount-Wood. She’s actually a foster parent with Valerie Lingo, her mother.
“It’s almost like me taking how I was raised,” said Blount-Wood. “And it helps guide me, and I have the person who taught me.”
Many foster care agencies can be selective about which people they accept, but Easterseals UCP emphasizes a loving home over a specific structure.
“I like that we don’t all look alike, we don’t all talk alike, we don’t all think alike,” Blount-Wood said. “And I like the fact that I feel like we’re just one big salad-bowl family.”
And now, their kids get more than another parent, they get a grandma.
“When I meet with them I ask, 'OK, you can either call me Miss Valerie, or you can call me G-Mom,” Lingo said. “And I don’t think I’ve had any child that has selected not to call me G-Mom.”
Like her daughter, Lingo has a lot to offer.
“I have a lot of love to give,” Lingo said. “It allows me to share things that they may not have had an opportunity to do, taking them to the beach, taking them to the pool, teaching them to hula hoop.”
They just hope that they can leave a positive impact on these kids.
“There is a song by Lauren Daigle, and it’s called 'I Will Rescue You,'” Lingo said. “I will send down an army and find you in the middle, and what I tell them is that Easterseals is the army, and that we are that team.”
The North Carolina Division of Social Services says that 15,000 kids in the state are in the foster care system, and 1,193 are in eastern North Carolina.
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