114,000 Reasons

Here are 114,000 reasons for better sex education.

Here are 114,000 reasons to provide low cost / free birth control for anyone who needs it.

Here are 114,000 reasons to support family preservation.

And if you are considering adoption here are 114,000 reasons to look in your own back yard.

From the San Francisco Chronicle

"All children deserve loving, permanent homes. That is the motivation behind the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption's celebration of National Adoption Awareness Month -- a nationwide campaign to encourage families throughout the United States and Canada to open their hearts and homes to children in foster care who are waiting to be adopted.

Today, more than 114,000 children in the U.S. foster care system are available for adoption. These children entered foster care through no fault of their own, as victims of child abuse, neglect or abandonment and their parents' legal rights have been terminated.

Each year, more children enter the system than are adopted. The typical child who has been freed for adoption is at least 8 years old, moves three or more times in foster care, may have been separated from siblings, and will wait five years or more to be adopted. Tragically, tens of thousands will never be adopted and will leave the system at age 18 without families."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/11/01/prwebprweb4731764.DTL#ixzz146AqbVUj

* This post is a part of my National Adoption Awareness Month, a post every day in November campaign, to remind perspective adoptive parents that there are 140,000 kids for whom family preservation is not an option, who through no fault of their own are currently available for adoption in the U. S. foster care system, right here in our own back yard.  If you are considering adoption please consider adopting a foster child or becoming a foster parent.  It could change a child’s life.