Molly's Life- Update for her cheerleaders and readers! And some notes on the point of it all

I have gotten so many messages about Molly each time I publish a new post.

Molly started out as a way for me to harness my outrage at the way we treat our nation's most precious resource, our children.

On any given day, approximately 400,000 children in the United States are in out of home care.*

We see stories sometimes about the truly good people caring for as many children as they can. Sadly, we see many about children who are seriously injured and killed as well. Luckily, child welfare system reform has increasingly become more of a hot button issue.

I personally believe we can do more. I was a child of our child welfare system. I was a smart kid, ahead of my class in every way. I was adopted by 5, but back in the system by 14. I fit into so many of the statistics that child welfare and child welfare reform activists throw at you to move you to compassion and action.

I also believe sometimes we focus so much on statistics and numbers that we forget child welfare is about each individual child. Our children are not numbers. They are individuals like Molly.

The lucky ones grow up and are an ever growing portion of our society. Some "make it" and become productive and break the cycles into which they were born. Some are not so blessed. Some become another page in a self repeating story.

You, my dear readers, have shown me in your support for Molly, how much you care. You have warmed my heart in how much you have responded in outrage at her mostly true stories. All of her stories are drawn from my own stories and the stories I heard first hand from other children in the system. There are so many more children like Molly that I want to introduce to all of you.

I have started work on a full novel about Molly as an adult, with flashbacks to her diary entries I have shared with you thus far, and many more that I have not had the courage to publish.

As I reach final edits, I will be publishing excerpts and gently introducing you to some of the other children she met along the way whose stories I will share later. Unfortunately those stories will not always have happy endings.

I hope as I publish this book and other short stories, I will have you first reaching for the tissues, and then have you rallying to demand change for all of these individual children that make up those large numbers in the statistics that are thrown at you.

Thank you for all your support! The first excerpts of Molly's novel are coming very soon. I will have it available for purchase sometime in 2015.

In the meantime, say a prayer, send a good thought, or make a donation today to help those individual children.

You can easily find a local group home in your area and make a direct donation of comfort items, NOT money, that those children will appreciate more than the funds that barely trickle down from the top when you throw them in donation buckets.

I will do a post in the next few days highlighting some great links and a list of items that the children would appreciate.





*Source: Childrensrights.org