It’s almost been a year since Michael Vanwoert died in a car crash. He was only nineteen. And he had only been a part of the Vanwoert family for three years.
“This hurts, but our life is so much better because we had Michael,” said Rachel Deuker-Vanwoert, his mother.
Michael was put in the foster care at the age of five, according to KVAL.
For nine years, Michael lived in the system, declared by multiple sources to be “unadoptable.” Files labelled him as introverted and antisocial.
Rachel even remembers her son telling her, “They said anybody who wanted to adopt me would be crazy.”
But in 2012, Rachel Deuker-Vanwoert and Tyson Vanwoert went through the offices of A Family for Every Child, wanting to adopt a child. They didn’t care how old he or she was.
As it turned out, Michael was the perfect fit for their family.
Tyson was asked whether he still would have adopted Michael, even if he’d known how much time his son had left. His response was immediate: “Yes, without a doubt. There’s nothing that would have stopped me from doing it.”
The mission of a Family for Every Child is to find a family for all foster children, especially those in danger of aging out of the system. Just like in the case of Michael, there are thousands children who don’t believe they’ll ever ever find a forever home.
Christy Obie-Barrett, the executive director of Family for Every Child says that they have helped facilitate the placement of over 5,000 foster children into loving homes.
Read here to learn the value of adopting teenagers.
