Local families fostering with love

By Kelly Terpstra, kterpstra@charlescitypress.com

Fertile soil is needed for plants to thrive. A combination of love and attention, plus plenty of water make for just the right mixture for a plant to rise above the ground and see the light.

For foster families across the state of Iowa, those moments of growth have a much more far-reaching impact than any greenhouse or farmer could replicate — but the life metaphor still holds true.

Here in Charles City two such families have been doing just that, fostering kids who need a home.

The growth they have helped facilitate is both incredible and inspiring.

One family, Shawn and Shelley Zweibohmer, have been a foster family for three years now after becoming officially licensed. Just this past September they adopted an 11-year-old girl who was once their foster child.

“We just like to give back to the community and this is the perfect opportunity. We have the space and financial ability to help out,” said Shelley, who has been a licensed day care provider for the past 13 years.

Nicholas Adams, a foster care worker at Four Oaks Family Connections, oversees about 30 foster families in Floyd and Mitchell counties. He talked about what most foster children yearn to have in their life — mainly stability.

“You want to make them have as close to having a normal childhood as they can,” said Adams. “You want to make them feel like they belong.”

That can be difficult.

Many kids come from families or backgrounds where the parents have a number of issues that have become stressful for them to deal with. Whether it’s for six months or two years, the parents need time to straighten out their own lives. This is when foster families can step in and help.

“Every kid’s situation is different — what they’ve seen, what they’ve been through,” said Adams. “A lot of the kids come in with pretty severe behaviors. At the same time you need to understand why they have these behaviors.”

A perfect example of a foster family that has thrived over the years helping children out with a temporary home of love and support is Diane and Dennis Sande. They welcomed twins — a boy and a girl — into their homes in 2010 as foster kids. Two years later they adopted them.

“Part of the reason of being a foster parent is to help those kids who are in situations that they didn’t choose,” said Diane Sande, “and to help those parents get back to a situation where they can have their kids back and create a good life or a positive life for their kids.”

Overcoming adversity and turning negatives into positives are just some of the challenges faced by the foster kids and parents alike.

“We don’t bad-mouth their birth parents,” Diane said. “You want it to be as positive as possible, because despite those situations those kids were in, they love their moms and dads, no matter what.”

She said she wanted to also erase a negative stigma that sometimes is associated with foster kids.

“Everyone thinks that if the kids get put in foster care that the parents are the worst thing ever. They made bad choices. It’s not that they don’t love their kids. They don’t have the skills when you’re 25 and already have five kids — it’s a lot on your plate,” said Diane, who teaches fourth grade at Lincoln Elementary in Charles City.

For the Zweibohmer’s, their love of children, coupled with seeing the kids’ accomplishments, were just a few of the reasons that they became foster parents.

“It’s very rewarding,” said Shelley Zweibohmer. “Not only are you serving the children, you’re giving the benefit of a stable home — and sometimes it’s just the smallest things.”

Adams had high praise for Shelley and her husband in all that they have done in helping raise kids — most of them to move on and become better because of it.

“They do a really great job of treating the kids as their own. They have done it better than any family that I have ever seen,” said Adams, who, along with his wife, is looking to adopt foster kids in the future.

With Mother’s Day fast approaching on Sunday, Dennis talked about one likely reason he and Diane turned something that might have been just temporary into something permanent, when they adopted their twins.

Dennis’ mother passed away in 2009.

“I don’t know what triggered adoption after she passed away. It was in our conversation pretty quickly after that,” said Dennis, who has four biological sons of their own who have all since moved out of the house.

“All of the sudden you start thinking about what Mom meant to you,” said Dennis. “She was such a nurturing person — a stay-at-home mother. A take-care-of-you mother. I felt very blessed.”