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Mandy’s mother, Sheila Metcalf, testified during Magistrate Heather Cady’s special docket that this was her daughter’s destiny.
“When she was 4 years old she declared she wanted to buy an orphanage and move to Tennessee and raise everybody’s children, we laughed,” Metcalf said. “In third grade she wrote an essay for Girl Scouts, she laid it all out, she was still going to buy an orphanage and raise everybody’s kids. She didn’t want any child to go unloved.”
The Whitesides have been fostering children — even if it was just for a weekend in some instances — for more than 13 years, and Mandy said they have cared for about 78 kids. The Whitesides were one of seven families making their foster kids permanent members of their family this weekend.
“They quickly became a clear and obvious part of our family and dynamic of our family,” Mandy told Cady. “It’s just where they belong. We just want to put the official seal on it and they’ll just be one more piece of our great big family puzzle.”
The adoption worker in charge of their case, Jamie Richardson, told the Journal-News the Whitesides are a rare breed.
“They are people that mold to fit the child, they don’t expect the child to come into the home and fit them,” Richardson said. “It’s a fun family, they do a lot of things together as a family they really enjoy and hold onto those times.”
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Cady at the end of the proceeding said “there is no doubt” the boys are where they should be and granted the adoption. She showed the boys her three gavels — baby bear, mama bear and a giant one, presumably papa bear — and allowed them to give their parents an order, like allowing them to stay up later or get a special treat. The boys weren’t interested in issuing an orders but had fun gaveling the hearing to an end.
Children Services Adoption Supervisor Theresa Cooper said they finalized 55 adoptions last year and with the group on Saturday they will have 67 children adopted so far this year. As of the beginning of November she said they had about 155 children needing forever families.
“In Butler County we have a great need for children to be adopted over the age of nine,” Cooper said. “Mostly our older teens are difficult to place, so somebody who can open their hearts and their families to teenagers, who have experienced a lot of trauma, we greatly need that here in Butler County.”
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