PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — After spending 11 years in the unknown, unsettled life of the foster care system, 13-year-old Alex has found a forever home.
Jenny and Stephen Madkour had been looking for a child to bring into their home for a while when they saw Alex on Jeff Gianola’s Wednesday’s Child segment in October 2017 and immediately wanted to learn more about him.
“Anybody who’s seen that video of Alex, his core awesome comes out in that video,” Jenny said. “It was such a great thing, the way Jeff Gianola talked to him and Alex’s interaction with him, it really gave us a glimpse of who Alex is.”
Alex remembers the exact moment he found out the Madkours were interested in him
His caseworkers at the Boys and Girls Aid delivered the happy news last year.
“I didn’t believe them,” Alex said. “This is not going to happen, you guys are just trying to fool me.”
In 11 years, Alex lived with 15 different foster families. For most of his life, he felt unsettled and had trouble trusting.
“It was a really big struggle to [think] ‘OK, I’m going from this home, in two weeks I’m going to another home,” Alex said.
But this time was different. The Madkours first met Alex shortly before Thanksgiving last year and he moved in with them right before Christmas. Now, they’re in the process of adopting him.
“We had been looking for a very long time,” Jenny said.
Stephen said they were aware of the shortage of foster homes in Oregon and had been thinking about opening up their home to an older child for a while.
“I said, we have and extra bedroom,” Stephen said.
Now that they’ve found him, they’re not letting go.
“I didn’t think I was going to find a forever home this good,” Alex said.
There are about 200 children in Oregon waiting to be adopted and more than 800 living in foster care. For information on how you can help, click here.