Special recognition has been paid to a senior foster mom from Maryland: senior because she’s 88 years old, and senior because she’s one of the most experienced long-term foster moms in the American foster home system.
Since opening her home in Montgomery County in the 1980s, she’s fostered over 40 children, and was recently presented with an award for her services to the youth of her state after announcing that she would finally retire from foster care.
Interviewed by ABC News as part of their ‘America Strong’ segment, Emma Patterson said she first became involved when the two children she birthed started to occasionally bring other kids home with them who needed help.
Whether it was food, warm clothes, or a place to safely spend time after school, the two siblings knew their mom was the right person to offer help.
At the time, Patterson had just separated with her children’s father, and along with working at a local university, also had a retail job that offered a discount she used to get the children, hers and not hers, what they needed.
This led her to registering herself and her home in White Oak, Maryland, into the Montgomery County foster home system, where she would occasionally foster infants—born drug-addicted babies who couldn’t go home with their parents—where she would foster up to nine kids at a time—where some would stay with her until they were adults.
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Patterson is one of the foster parents in the county who has housed the most children long-term and one of the longest-serving foster parents, a Montgomery County spokesperson confirmed to ABC News.
“This wasn’t something that I ever thought anybody paid attention to. You know, I didn’t do it for the purpose of anybody, give me any recognition,” Patterson told ABC News. “It was always a situation where it was just a boy or girl that didn’t have anybody to care anything about them. And they needed a place to sleep or something to eat.”
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“I’m very proud of all of the children because, you know, they all have just turned out to be just wonderful human beings.”
WATCH the story below from ABC News…
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