"Anyone Who Would Love Me"

"We are following through with every offer, explaining the process to people and directing them to have home studies done. I have no doubt that, because of these enquiries, we will find a family for him."

Davion Only, 15, gets some last-minute help with his tie from his case worker Connie Going before nervously making his speech before the congregation 

"We have more than 100,000 kids in foster care across the country, just waiting for someone to take them in. We have been encouraging everyone to look at all the other kids who need them."
Connie Going, caseworker Florida Child Welfare

In his fifteen years of life, Davion Navar Henry Only has never known the comfort and security of family life. He has always been a ward of the state. Born in prison, raised in foster care, living now with a dozen other boys whose life mirrors his own, in a group home. They can take a certain measure of comfort that in their plight they are not alone. They form a legion of the deprived and the lonely sufferers of parentless situations.

There are innumerable accounts of children growing up in similar situations, yearning for the loving emotional support of being valued by adults who care deeply about their welfare, struggling to provide them with opportunities that will allow them to make the most of their life-potential. If there is no one in the cheering section for these children, how will they be motivated? Absent familial support and love they feel valueless.

And Davion Only would like to be of value to someone, so that he can feel himself to be valuable. With that comfort he will attempt to achieve a future for himself. Without it, he will be passively amenable to letting life flow him into any kind of situation without himself taking any assertive part in the play that proceeds; an 'extra' in the main action where other primary actors make decisions for him that he is disinterested in.

He is anything but disinterested at this juncture in his life, when the desire to have someone love him and care for him and guide and motivate him is uppermost in mind. Unlike most other children who eventually give up on their dreams, it appears that Davion Only still dreams. "I know God hasn't given up on me. So I'm not giving up either", he said, addressing the congregation at St.Mark Missionary Baptist Church in St. Petersburg.

It was an address that his social worker Connie Going had arranged on his behalf. To help him realize his dream. To help him achieve a condition of life that would defy the feelings that suffuse his being of never having felt wanted, never having his own room, never knowing the love of an adult who might consider him a son. Following his opening up to the congregants, people hugged him, congratulated him, expressed interest in his well-being.

They were moved, as  how could they not be? The Tampa Times wrote about him, and local people began contacting Davion Only's social worker to ask whether they could adopt him. "I've never seen anything like this. His simple plea just struck a chord with the world", Ms. Going said. Barbara Walters asked to interview Davion Only on television. When she asked him to describe his imagined perfect family he responded: "Anyone who would love me".

We can hope that new trend has been born; the awakening of a social conscience to rescue children from the oblivion of despair.