National Adoption Day: 100 LA foster care children find homes

MONTEREY PARK, Calif. (KABC) -- Three-year-old Amber is now officially part of the Ramirez family. She had been living with Manny and Christal Ramirez, who were her foster parents for the past two years. Now they have adopted her.

With Thursday being National Adoption Day, Manny and Christal Ramirez celebrated their cherished new daughter with other families who have adopted children.

"I feel greatly blessed by God, I think he gave us the opportunity to teach very valuable lessons to this child and I'm just really happy," said Christal Ramirez.

About 100 foster children in Los Angeles County were officially taken out of the system and were sent home with their new families on Thursday.

"It's important because kids need permanent homes. They need somebody to love them, they need somebody to go home to," said Jacqueline Caster with the Everychild Foundation.

The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services says while 100 children are going to loving homes today there are still roughly 35,000 kids in the foster care system in the county -- the largest number of children in the foster care system of any city or county in the nation.

"Our primary goal is to keep a biological family together but in many cases that's not possible so often times we'll have a situation where we have to work toward an adoption," said Philip Browning, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services.

In Manny and Christal Ramirez's case, adopting Amber wasn't only something they felt they should do, but something they knew they wanted.

"She's a child who has a lot of love in her and unfortunately her biological parents weren't able to care for her anymore, so my wife and I decided to give her a home," said Manny Ramirez.

Get more Los Angeles News »

los angeles news, leo stallworth

• Comment Now
• Email
• Print
• Report a typo
•