When 43-year-old Bennie Berry started teaching a class at Pathways Learning Center in Beaumont a few years ago, she had no idea that year her life would change forever.
You see, in that class of teenagers was 16-year-old Anthony, who had been in the foster care system since he was only nine years old.
His life had been anything but a bed of roses up until then, and he had been sent to an alternative school because of discipline problems he had had in the past.
A son of drug addicts, young Anthony needed desperately to be loved and cared for, but it seemed that no one was interested in giving him the love and affection he deserved as a child.
“I was left out, and, you know, I wasn’t wanted,” he told NBC News at the time.
After moving from foster one foster home to another, he realized he would probably never find a permanent home and a forever family.
That’s when he got disappointed and decided he didn’t want to be adopted at all.
As he confessed in an interview with NBC News, he didn’t want “anything to do with it”. But then, all of a sudden, something changed and made him reconsider.
Dr. Berry was one of the students’ favorite teachers, and then at some point, someone had the idea of her adopting Anthony.
Some of his classmates started joking about wanting to live with their favorite teacher, and that’s when it hit him. He would ask Dr. Berry to adopt him.
Indeed, a while later, he approached her and asked her if she would like to see the website about adopting children in foster care. She agreed on one condition: he’d first finish an assignment that was due.
Guess what! That was the first assignment that Anthony had finished in no time. And he had a good reason for it!
As soon as the teacher saw the website, she thought why not?
“It was hard for me to say no; he has too much potential,” the woman said. “Give me the papers,” she added.
Indeed, only a while later, Anthony was officially adopted by Bennie Berry adopted at the Jefferson County Courthouse.
He was one of the 18 kids that were adopted that day, and both the new mom and the new member of her family got emotional.
It’s so important to remember that it’s not only babies that need to be adopted, but it’s also teenagers who have spent most of their childhood moving from one foster family to another, which leaves a scar on their hearts and soul.
Adopting these kids is the greatest gift you can offer them. Giving them all the love and appreciation they deserve can make a world of a difference for them in the future.
What an inspiring story!
Head over to the video below to find out how it all unfolded!
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