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WILKES-BARRE — This is the open heart that earned Lorine Ogurkis a spotlight on stage Thursday night, her voice always on the edge of cracking, her right hand clutching an overworked tissue.
“I saw how children in foster care were viewed,” she said of the origin of Brandon’s Forever Home. She called her accountant “from the Children and Youth parking lot and said I want to start a 501(3)(c), and I want you to find me the grandest home in Luzerne County you can find in Hazleton.
“I wanted the children to feel grand, the true perfection of what they are. But I much more so wanted to help change the perception of children in foster care, as if they had done something wrong, as if they are at fault, as if they are worthless.”
The house would become “a beacon for our community to see they deserve to know more.”
For her efforts in helping set up Brandon’s as a place to raise awareness about foster care and adoption while helping children in need, Ogurkis received the Mary Bevevino Community Service Award at the Luzerne Foundation’s annual meeting and reception Thursday night, held at the F.M. Kirby Center for the Performing Arts.
And while the event included speeches citing the more than $100 million granted in the foundation’s 22 years, Ogurkis put the abstract of foundation funding into concrete results.
“I knew if I just told people how beautiful the children were and showed them as children who did nothing wrong, who were born, merely born, into a house different from mine, that they would love them,” Ogurkis told the crowd.
She talked of her family both natural and adopted, including 3-year-old Michael “who is a bit rambunctious” and thus couldn’t be at the event.
“I want to thank the mother who gave birth to him,” Ogurkis said. “She didn’t need to. She could have had an abortion. But she chose to give him life. And then she chose to give him to me. And I will forever pray for her and bless her for giving me this opportunity to raise a beautiful child.”
She cited troubling statistics. There are more than 400 children in foster care in Luzerne County but only 85 homes, forcing many to be sent out of county.
Last year 190 aged out of foster care, and without support “within three years they will become homeless, they will become drug addicted, they will become in the criminal sector, they will become pregnant, and the cycle continues.
Ogurkis urged others to get involved in foster care and consider adoption.
The speech was so moving Rabbi Larry Kaplan, who gave the benediction, decided to talk about a foster girl living with his family who wants to stay.
“We already have a packed house,” he said. “People ask how many kids do you have, I say I don’t know. I’m financially responsible for 10, put it that way.” Kaplan confessed he and his wife have struggled with the thought of adopting another.
“I’m going home tonight and telling my wife that we don’t have a choice,” he said. “You have to after you heard this.”
