“Anyone can be a good person, they just have to try.”
Wise words from Rose, one of the youngest members of the Sena clan; a family made up of Terri and Dan and, depending on the year, dozens of other kids just trying to be good and get by.
“We have a grand baby all the time, so to speak, we have children all the time,” Dan told me.
“We kind of figured at one point we've been close to 100,” Terri said.
100 kids and thousands of stories to tell.
“There are some that totally stand out.”
It was the empty nest, their own children grown and gone, that made Terri and Dan decide to do something some may see as drastic.
“A lot of people will say ‘Oh I've always wanted to do that’ and I'm like well you should do it,” Terri said.
What “that” is is to open their home and heart to foster children.
Some stayed for just days or weeks and some for as long as three to four years. But each received something they’d never known; a stable and secure home life until, ideally, they’d return to their own parents.
That is, except for Rose.
Oh, she’s stable and secure; her home a place for “healing and happiness” as she put it.
But she’s the only one of a hundred who can really call Terri “Mom."
The Senas adopted her when she was just two years old.
“I just do it because I love the children. It's not heroic. I don't look at it as being heroic. It is what it is.”
Whatever you call it, Terri and Dan invite you to do it, too.
You can learn more about how to help Arizona’s foster children at abc15.com/kids
