ADOPTION DAY
Craig Lustig used to be a planner. When he and his husband Pete Carter learned that foster homes welcoming to gay teens were needed, they thought opening their home for short stays would be a good way to give back.
Then they got an urgent call at 6 p.m. one night: Could they take in a 2-year-old?
And before 9 p.m., a little boy arrived. He had a brown paper bag with a set of clothes that no longer fit him, and a toy race car that was broken. He wasn’t crying, and he didn’t seem scared. He had a big smile on his face, and he gave them both hugs.
“This happy little toddler arrived on our doorstep and just took over the place,” Lustig said.
“From that day he became part of our family,” Carter said.
On Saturday, they made it official. Joshua Duenas Lustig, now 8 years old, was one of 45 children adopted at a ceremony co-hosted by the D.C. Superior Court and the city’s Child and Family Services Agency, an annual event to celebrate the families and encourage others to consider helping.
Of the nearly 800 children in foster care in the city, child-welfare officials are seeking permanent adoptive homes for 60. “Call 202-671-LOVE if you’re interested,” officials kept saying to the hundreds of people who packed the courthouse for D.C. Adoption Day.
Officials had transformed the drab brick-and-stone atrium of the courthouse — which has been a place of exhausting or stressful meetings for some of the children — into a celebratory place. Judges sat under a garland of fat red, orange and blue balloons while girls in long white dresses danced.
Kristina Fleming, a young woman who aged out of the foster-care system in April, stepped to the microphone, hesitating. “I’m a little nervous,” she said. A pause. Then she began to sing, softly, Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love of All,” and her voice swelled as she went on, lifting her arms as it filled the huge space. A father swayed along, cradling a toddler; a mother by the wall spun her daughter, the little girl’s party dress twirling...READ MORE
