 Author’s note: This is the message I shared at our Creating Brighter Futures event. So many of you asked to read and pass it along—I wanted to share it with everyone. When my son was in middle school, he asked me not to come to school. He knew that if I showed up, someone might look at us and decide what he was. Not who—what. Overnight, he wouldn’t be just a kid; he’d be “the adopted kid.” He just wanted to be a kid. I think about that a lot—how fast a label becomes a wall. How many children learn to make themselves smaller so they won’t be pointed at. How many parents practice answers because they know the questions are coming. How many young adults carry a quiet, heavy secret: If you knew the systems that touched my life, would you still see me the same? Right now, more than 300 children in Chatham County are in foster care. And thousands of our neighbors have been in care, adopted, or otherwise pulled into the child-welfare current at some point. They bag groceries beside you. Sit in lecture halls near you. Clock in on the line next to you. Ordinary days, extraordinary weight. What they want isn’t complicated: to belong without a label, to be believed without mounting a defense, and to be understood without bleeding out their whole story to earn it. That is why Brightside exists. Every day I watch people choose love that looks like showing up. A CASA who keeps the third promise after the first two were hard. A Bright House staff member who kneels to a child’s eye level and makes room for a parent’s dignity. A Brighter Futures case manager who celebrates a first paycheck like a diploma—because for that young adult, it is. This work is tender. It’s practical. And it’s fragile. We’ve worked hard to rely less on government funding—moving from heavy dependence to under half of our budget today. That’s good stewardship. But the portion that remains still underwrites what can never be replaced: people. Programs don’t sit in courtrooms. Grants don’t hold babies. People do. Why Three Years In our community, three years often mirrors a child’s chapter in foster care. It is not their whole story—but too often it’s the loneliest one. A three-year commitment says, I’ll stay for this chapter—three birthdays, three first days of school, three holidays without wondering if help will disappear. Your steadiness tells a child, a parent working their plan, and a young adult after foster care: you are seen. That promise keeps doors open and rooms safe. It trains advocates. It protects visitation time. It turns “maybe” into “I’m ready.” How You Can Stay for the Whole Story
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