You may be thinking to yourself, "What the heck is THAT?" Well, let me tell you.

Foster care is when a family (my family, for example) volunteers to take in children when the child's parents have died, are sick, or cannot take care of them any more for such-and-such reasons. The kids have to stay with their foster family until either their parents are able to care for them again or an adoption has been arranged for them.

My family started taking care of foster kids when I was four and my sister was six. We have so far cared for 34 children -- not all at once, mind you! -- and we feel we have accomplished a lot. We have had babies from only one day old, to kids that were nine years old. A lot of the older kids we have cared for have had problems. Many of them had had a rough childhood, and experienced awful things.

I have learned so much from this experience of caring for kids that I am positive I will choose to be a foster mom when I grow up.

Encourage your parents to take foster care classes and become a foster parent, because America needs help caring for homeless kids. Just think of those poor kids with no one to hug when they are sad, and no one to tuck them in at night.

We need you, so please, become a foster family, or donate to the Division of Social Services (DSS) near you.

This is Sila, signing out.

*Bleep Bloop*