The Division of Children and Family Services and Project Zero are in the midst of their three month long “Everyday Counts Campaign” and they have a lofty goal they hope to achieve.
Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the number of kids in foster care has only gone up in the past 18-months, and for the next few months leading up to National Adoption Month, they’re making every day count.
Kids like 12-year-old Camden are among the 349 kids in foster care in Arkansas now.
"I want to just feel safe and not go to different homes," he said. "Just someone who's kindhearted."
Pregnant at 17, Tricia Goyer knew she was going to be a single mom. She prayed that God would send her a future husband who would love her and love her son.
"Actually, the day that my son, Cory was born, John came to visit. He was the pastor's son, and was just coming to see how I was doing," Goyer said.
Tricia and John got married, and went on to have two more kids. As the kids got older, the Goyer's realized they were still young, and felt that their mission wasn't over.
"We were thinking, you know what, we're kind of young still and maybe we can have more family, we can offer more love to kids," Goyer said. "It really was my husband and I feeling like you know, on this earth, God has given us a purpose."
That thought lead them to adoption, first privately, then through foster care when they moved to Arkansas in 2010.
"We just really saw that there's a lot of kids out there that need homes."
They adopted a two and five-year-old first, and just a couple years later, four sisters between the ages of 11 and 15 at the time.
"I can't imagine not having them in my life and, you know, I think that, God definitely put them in our lives for a reason, and everyday, I'm just thankful for them," Goyer said.
The youngest of the four, Florentina is now 16, but she still remembers being that scared little girl in foster care, waiting.
"I'd go to school and all my friends would talk about about their families, and I didn't have a family," she said.
Siblings typically take more time to find a home that will take them all, and with one sister who already aged out of the system, Florentina was scared.
"A lot of foster kids end up on the streets, like doing drugs, and like, sleeping around, and all of that," she said. "A lot of the kids in the system, like, honestly had no idea why their parents had given them up."
She said God was looking out for them, and the Goyer family saved her and her sisters from that life.
"They made us realize that, like, they weren't going to give up on us, they actually truly wanted us to be in their family," she said.
The Goyer's found Florentina and her sisters through Project Zero’s Heart Gallery. Founder of Project Zero, Christie Erwin, is a community partner with DCFS, helping with the Everyday Counts campaign.
"Looking at individual kids, individual personalities, individual situations, and helping them understand that every day that goes by with a child waiting is a day too long," Erwin said.
The three month campaign is intended to bring attention to the need for adoptive families in Arkansas, and find forever families for the hundreds of waiting kids in foster care by National Adoption Month in November.
"We can't lose ground. We can't," she said. "So we're just thinking of ways that we can continue our mission, in spite of COVID."
The legal fees for adoption through the state foster care system are taken care of. While some may wonder if adoption is for them, those like the Goyer's encourage them to ask, instead, 'What would it be like for Arkansas to become the first state to have no more kids waiting in foster care?'
"All those kids deserve a family and all those families deserve kids," Goyer said. "If you're thinking about adoption, I would encourage you to take that step to make the call to consider adopting yourself."
DHS has 160 kids who are close to being adopting, and they’re hyper-focused on moving them through the process over the next few months. Meanwhile, the state and it’s community partner project zero are calling on families to open their homes, and hearts, and consider adoption.
To learn more about the children and teens waiting to be adopted or for information on becoming an adoptive parent, visit www.theprojectzero.org or humanservices.arkansas.gov.
Goyer has a new children's book on gratitude that released Sept. 14 with Running Kids Press called "The Grumbles: A Story About Gratitude." September 21 is also "National Gratitude Day." Goyer wrote an article about ways we can teach children gratitude.