Scenes at Black Adoption Fair Run From Heartbreaking to Happy

It seemed to take only a moment for a baby boy to steal a couple’s heart. And for the heart of another child to be broken.

The 18-month-old played in a toy truck as Doris and Sam Gayton leaned over him, smiling, already in love. “This is going to be our son,” she said, laughing. “I won’t be able to rest until we get him.”

A 6-year-old stood alone nearby, his face painted in the bright hues of clown makeup. After watching the Gaytons with the toddler, he sadly turned away.

The scene exemplified why for the 12th year in a row, the County Department of Children’s Services has held the Black Adoption Festival, an opportunity for prospective parents to meet children who need homes. It brought together some kids and adults, but also showed the need for more African-American adoptive parents.

About 100 children were at the picnic Saturday in the city of Carson’s Victoria Park.

“You can’t describe a child on a piece of paper,” explained Sara Berman, chief of the Department of Children’s Services’ adoption division. “This is a way to make clear we have many special children. It allows us to highlight these children, their personalities.”

Boys and girls from 5 months to 12 years old got their faces painted with clown makeup, ate hot dogs and played amid balloons and streamers as prospective parents looked on. But behind the festive air was a serious purpose--finding permanent homes for hundreds of African-American children currently caught in the child welfare system.

Of the 500 children available for adoption in Los Angeles County, nearly 400 are black, most of them boys, said Peter Digre, director of the Department of Children’s Services. But only about half of the children attending such adoption festivals find homes as a result. And though more children are getting adopted than in previous years, drugs, neglect and abuse continue to send youngsters into the system faster than families can be found to take them, Digre said.

And so for some at Saturday’s festival there was a sense of urgency. Social worker Maureen Stuart stood in front of a board that displayed pictures of the children and proudly trumpeted the attributes of her 2-year-old charge, Gary.

“He gets very attached to people,” said Stuart, smiling. “He’s adorable.”

Stuart has worked for the county for only a year. But she has been in child welfare long enough to know that the older a black boy gets, the less chance he has of being adopted. “At his age I feel he has a better chance,” she said of Gary. “Every event I’m going to be pushing him, so he can get adopted young.”

For some prospective parents, attending the festival was as much an act of social consciousness as it was a personal desire for a child.

Debi Williams said she had wanted to adopt since she was 12 years old, when she started seeing her friends have children they did not want and would not keep.

“I had many friends who got pregnant when they were 12 or 13 years old,” said Williams as she and her husband, Darrell, sat and watched a group of children play tug of war. “Many of them put their kids up for adoption. I knew then there was going to be a problem.”

Great care was taken by festival organizers to make sure the children did not feel they were on display. A supervisor was supposed to be near each child at all times, Berman said. And prospective parents were instructed not to ask insensitive questions about the child’s background, or their desire for a new family.

But all the caution in the world could not diminish the reality that for every child who found a home, there would be another who would not.

Doris Gayton looked sadly at the 6-year-old boy who had turned away as she looked at another child. “I’m just shocked. All these healthy kids and their parents don’t want them,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking.”