FORT LAUDERDALE — Saturday is National Adoption Day and Broward County celebrated by giving over two dozen children a priceless gift: A place to call home.
Kailani Maciel-Iacono and her two younger sisters had been in three different foster homes over the last three years because their mother had a drug problem. They were even separated twice.
“At first she was in a different home and it was me and her in one home and then we got put all together, and then that’s when got separated again. it was them two in the same home and then me in a different home,” Maciel-Iacono said.
“It was hard. It was really hard,” she added. “I just really wanted to go back and see them.”
The girls had most recently been living with their grandmother. She decided that it only made sense to become their mother — by adopting them.
“I told them yesterday well you know I’m going to be your mom as of tomorrow,” said their grandmother Ydaly Grabski. “They said you’ll always be ‘Rita,’ which is ‘Grandmom.'”
They celebrated it at an adoption ceremony at the Broward County Courthouse.
Officials with ChildNet, which operates the foster care system for the county, said there are at least 1,200 kids in the foster care system in Broward County. But, more than 25 of them found a permanent home on National Adoption Day.
Larry Rein, president and CEO of ChildNet, said adoptions within the family are usually best for the kids.
“People more and more realize that children crave and need family and family connections,” he said. “So if we can maintain that connection, it’s much better for their well-being going forward.”
It wasn’t official until the girls banged the gavel. Grandma said she got an early Christmas present.
“It’s been a long road and now. Here I am,” Grabski said.
And the girls are glad they can stop moving to a new home every year.
“I don’t get to worry anymore I can just relax go home and hang out and not have to worry about that hanging over my shoulder,” Maciel-iacono said.
