The story below is an actual letter written by Megan for whom CASA helped find permanence.  Megan’s story is just one of the more than 300 families that Sumner County CASA will help in this upcoming year. CASA volunteers are “Everyday Heroes” who make a difference in a child’s life. 

Megan’s Story

When I tell people I’m adopted they always want to know my story.  It’s not a pretty story, but it has a very happy ending.  My little brothers and sister and I are going to live “happily ever after”, but it might not have turned out that way if my Mom (adoptive mother) had not heard from CASA.  Mom and Daddy (adoptive parents) had gotten my baby brother when he was only seven weeks old, and he had already been neglected (something left out of his care) until he almost starved.  But our birth parents kept saying they wanted us back, and the laws say that the State has to do all it can do to put children back with their birth parents.  But my Mom just knew there was something terribly wrong in that house, and she was terrified that my tiny baby brother was going to be sent back.  When the CASA volunteer called and said that she was working with our family, she was just so nice to my Mom.  She said that she was going to do her best for the kids.  My Mom told her that she was positive that drugs and abuse were going on in the home of our birth parents, and she begged our CASA to investigate it.  My Mom could just tell that this was someone she could trust and someone who was going to work very hard for us.  So she told the CASA volunteer everything she had heard or seen.  Our CASA volunteer listened to my Mom.  She started investigating everything my Mom told her.  I know it was hard for her, because besides being a CASA volunteer she (CASA volunteer) was a single Mom and had a full-time job, but when she checked into everything it was all true.  Soon after that, Mom and Daddy asked if my little sister, another little brother, and I could come there to live, too, because we were all in different foster homes.  That’s when the CASA volunteer came to talk to me.  She was SO SWEET to me.  She made me feel so safe.  She told me that I could tell her anything and she would report it to the juvenile judge.  I could tell she was somebody who really wanted to help us.  Because of all the things the CASA volunteer found out about the drugs, our social worker with the Department of Children’s Services did a drug test on my birth mother’s boyfriend.  He wasn’t my father, but he was my brothers’ and sister’s father.  He tested positive, and that was just the beginning.  Everybody knew then that the things that had been reported were really true.  I told the CASA volunteer, my caseworker and my counselors everything that I could remember from the time I was a little girl.  They said that I was very courageous to tell my story, and maybe that would make a real difference in our lives.  My birth mother and her boyfriend had to go to court so the judge could decide if he would terminate their parental rights.  The judge said he might talk to me, and even though I was very nervous, I knew I would find the courage to do it.  But because of all the hard work our CASA volunteer and our social worker had done, I didn’t even have to do anything.  The CASA volunteer and staff went to court for us along with our wonderful social worker, and some other really important people, too, like the court appointed lawyer that represented the kids, and the CPS worker who had removed us.  My Mom called them the “Dream Team”, because they all worked together with the attorney to do what was right for us.  The judge granted the termination, and six months after that we got the best Christmas present in the world.  Mom and Daddy and their already adopted daughter adopted all four of us, so for the first time in my life I was in a REAL FAMILY!   I know that my parents have had to work very hard to change from being the parents of one to being the parents of five young children.  They had to buy a new van and more furniture and move things all over the house.  There’s never enough time to do all the laundry at once, and Mom said her grocery bill resembles “the National Debt”, whatever that is, but when anyone asks my parents why they did this they always give the same answer.  They didn’t go out looking for four children to adopt.  They volunteered to foster a baby.  But when God gave them a baby with three siblings who needed to be loved forever, they knew what they had to do…love us forever!  Thank you CASA for being there for us!