Sometimes people can be a little condescending to us “foster kids” when we try and do something that we love. Unfortunately, sports and fine arts are a few of the things that we are told we can’t do. However, in my case, being in foster care opened the door to doing what I love which is the opposite side of what most foster youth experience.

Before being placed into care, I didn’t have the opportunity to do do marching band, the activity that I love due to not having enough money to pay for the fees; let alone the transportation to make it to after school practices late at night. To prove those skeptics wrong, I personally worked really hard to get into a good high school, maintain my grades, and get back into band. Luckily, fate worked its magic and I believe that I was placed into the foster care system to have the opportunity to do what I love.

This is because instead of letting being placed in the system diminish my life, it actually helped it. By working hard and having expert connections, I landed the best situation while being in care and even though it may not have been a long foster life journey, I gained so much experience and knowledge about the system. I understood that I had to jump through as many hoops to get what I wanted and even though foster care happened to be one of my more challenging hoops, it certainly was worth it in the end.