Local Families Grow as Hillsborough Kids Celebrates National Adoption Day

Two lucky kids just found permanent homes in the Greater Brandon area.

Hillsborough Kids celebrated National Adoption Day on Nov. 18 at the George E. Edgecomb Courthouse in Tampa by making more than 30 adoptions official. Among them, a 13-year old girl named Payton became a member of the Anderson family of Valrico.

Steve and Lisa Anderson were in the second round of adoptions to be made official on a day that Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn declared Tampa's Adoption Day, one day before National Adoption Day. For Payton, joining the Anderson family ends a five-year foster care stay in which she saw four potential adoption matches fall through.

"It's a special day for me because I'm going to have a real family and I will always look up to them," Payton said. "Now I'm not going to be an only child, which feels pretty good. I'm looking forward to the future. This is it. I'm out of foster care for good."

The Andersons have a 12-year-old daughter, Mariah, who they adopted several years ago. The family was looking to grow the family and had always planned on adopting just as Lisa was as a child. They had considered adopting a younger child, but after meeting Payton, the couple fell in love and decided she was the perfect sister they sought for their daughter.

"This is great because now our other daughter has someone to play and grow up with," Steve Anderson said. "This is something that we've wanted to do since we got married and, when we found her, we knew she would fit into our family because she got along so well with our other daughter. We're happy to have her become part of our family because she is such a good kid."

Riverview Foster Parents Adopt

Melody and Ben Rodriguez of Riverview have been caring for foster kids with medical issues for 10 years. But when 4-year-old Anthony came under their care — after becoming the 100th child to receive a heart transplant at All Children's Hospital three years ago — they felt a connection like no other.

"After seeing the way he has become attached to us, I didn't want to break the heart that was just mended," Ben Rodriguez said. "With him we have connected on all levels. We have a boat-load of fun with him and we look forward to the challenges and good times ahead."

Anthony will become the fourth child of the couple, grandparents who care also for two other medically ill foster children. Young Anthony was excited to have finally found his "Forever Family," and for the parents, the unease of not knowing whether or not Anthony would be part of their family is finally over.

"I tell him all the time that he is my wart because he is always stuck to me," Melody Rodriguez said. "It's just such a relief to know that he is a Rodriguez now. He is so special that we felt like we had to do this to make his and our life complete."

Adoption Day A Great Need for Hillsborough Kids

Adoption Day is a much-needed day of satisfaction for the Hillsborough Kids organization. Handling 2,500 kids in foster care at any given time, the organization is able to help place roughly 300 kids in adopted homes every year.

But only on Adoption Day are this many successful in a single day.

"It's a tough job finding homes for every kid but a day like today is very gratifying,” said Jeff Rainey, Hillsborough Kids’ chief executive officer. "This is what we live for. We work so hard to find these forever families for the kids so we couldn't ask for a better day than this."

The event was heavily attended by members of the community, press and all of the families adopting children. Two-time Olympian Reese Hoffa served as a guest speaker thanking the families for adopting and sharing his story of being adopted at the age of 4.

"I want to thank all of the families for taking it upon yourselves to shape these young minds and their futures," Hoffa said. "You never know, you may be adopting the next Steve Jobs, John Lennon or the next Reese Hoffa."