Pubdate: Sat, 02 Jun 2007
Source: New Haven Register (CT)
Copyright: 2007 New Haven Register
Contact:  http://www.nhregister.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/292
Author: Maria Garriga, Register Staff
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

FOSTER CHILD WINS WRITING CONTEST

NEW HAVEN -- A longtime judge for the annual  Connecticut Elks essay
contest says she never read an  entry quite like the one from William
McCleese, a  seventh-grader at Celentano Museum Academy.

The contest required students to explain why "Drug  Abuse Is Not
Cool." In less than 200 words, William,  14, described how drug
addiction had forced his parents  to give him away.

"In all my years, I've never read an essay like it,"  said Debbie
Angell, a contest judge and chairwoman of  the Drug Awareness
Committee of the Connecticut Elks  Association. The Elks received
5,000 contest entries in  Connecticut this year, she said. "From this
point on,  this essay will go national," Angell told the New Haven
Board of Education in May as it recognized William.

William speaks for many children.

The state has 6,300 children living in its custody;  drug abuse is a
factor in two-thirds of these cases,  said Gary Kleeblatt, spokesman
for the state Department  of Children and Family Services. Half of
these children  return to their biological parents, but for many
others, the parents lose parental rights for the  children's safety.

Deeply troubled parents sometimes surrender their  parental rights to
the state. Their children have no  home to which they can return. Such
children are often  bounced from one foster home to another as state
workers struggle to find a permanent placement.

"I don't remember my parents. I don't know their names.  I still love
them," William told a reporter.

"William is a survivor of the best kind, the kind that  survive
without being angry," his foster mother, Mae  Gibson-Brown said in an
interview at her home.

In her living room hangs a painting of herself done by  a now-deceased
friend. In it she has curly hair, warm  brown eyes and a megawatt
smile. William also has curly  hair, the same smile, the same gentle
brown eyes.

Gibson-Brown, 69, believes that knowing where you are  from is
critical to having a sense of self-worth and  dignity. "It's who you
are and whose you are," she  said, with a strong emphasis on "whose."

Gibson-Brown keeps active as a gospel singer and  storyteller who
shares stories of growing up in the  poor South. In her living room
sits a cake box of  cotton she plucked from bushes on an Alabama
roadside.  Gibson-Brown also keeps a plastic bucket of coal from  West
Virginia, where her father worked as a coal miner,  and a plastic
juice bottle filled with red mud from  Macon, Ga., home of her mother.

Their legacy is what moved her into becoming a foster  parent,
although she had already raised six biological  children.

For Gibson-Brown, a retired New Haven schoolteacher who  sings in a
gospel group, finding William was  serendipitous. More than five years
ago, an  acquaintance who worked with Jewish Family Services saw
Gibson-Brown in concert and asked her if she knew of  any potential
foster parents. The acquaintance sent a  packet with photographs of
foster children.  Gibson-Brown said a granddaughter looking through
the  photos called her attention to one in particular.

"She said, 'Look at this little boy. He looks like he  could be part
of our family.' We put his picture up on  the fridge."

Just over a year and three months later, Gibson-Brown  drove to
Washington to meet a young boy who needed a  permanent home. It was
the boy on her refrigerator. "I  think that bond was created for me by
God," she said.

She is passionate about getting him involved with  extra-curricular
activities. William loves soccer. He  sings in the church choir at the
Agape Christian Center  and volunteers as an usher. His favorite
hangout is the  library, where he devours magazines about motorcycles
and dirt bikes. Gibson-Brown stunned William at  Christmas with a Sony
PlayStation Portable for the  latest video games and a bass guitar.

"I was about to scream when I saw the guitar, and I  almost ran out of
the house when I saw the PSP," he  said.

Gibson-Brown is particular about the video games. "No  guns or blood,"
William said. "We just don't allow it."  Gibson-Brown said.

William's favorite activity is what he mischievously  calls "fun
times." He likes to sneak attack her with  hugs and kisses, usually
when she is distracted doing  something else. He gave a
demonstration.

"I must be getting covered in boy cooties!"  Gibson-Brown
hollered.

William laughed and hugged her close.
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MAP posted-by: Steve Heath