A forever home, at last

Three lucky kids found their way home Friday.

They weren’t lost, they simply didn’t have a family to call their own.

In celebration of National Adoption Day, an event to raise public awareness of the need for adoptive homes, three adoptions occurred at the Island County Superior Court Friday afternoon.

For the first time during the program’s three years, the adoptive families agreed to have an open courtroom, allowing anyone and everyone to take part in the adoptions.

“It became quite a celebration,” CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) Program Coordinator Carla Grau-Egerton said.

The courtroom took on a different feel from the everyday-type of hearing. Adoptive families filled the front rows and the rest of the benches were crammed with friends and former and future adoptive parents. Babies babbled and kids toddled around, climbing over loving parents’ laps. Even more people stood in the back of the room by the door, shifting to make more room for latecomers.

Before the hearing, Grau-Egerton introduced Linda Russell, who has worked with CASA for six years.

“It doesn’t matter how old a child is,” she said, adding that children can be adopted at any age.

“I love my family,” said 12-year-old Donald Lake, affectionately known as Buddy, as he wrapped his arms around his parents, Kenneth and Melody, following the formal completion of his adoption.

Kenneth joined the Lake family, which includes two adopted siblings, older sister, Anna, and little brother, Evan.

In a matter of a motion, Donna Butler went from being a great-grandmother to mother of 5-year-old Issac Butler, although she just goes by “Grandma.”

And 3-year-old Kellen Sills gave a big nod, “yes” as Judge Vickie Churchill asked if he wanted to be adopted by William and Mary Sills, his grandparents.

“He is my grandson, so we want to keep him in my family,” William told the judge when asked why he wanted Kellen to be part of his “forever family.”

More than 10,000 kids in Washington live in foster care and over 2,000 of those children are available for adoption, said Judge Alan Hancock, who thanked the families for their compassion.

“You give of your time and of yourselves,” he said, “so these children can experience family life as it was meant to be.”

Awareness of the program is growing every year, and so are the number of children who need safe and permanent homes, he said.

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