Livingstone News Service

SALISBURY — May is Foster Care Awareness Month and Livingstone College President Dr. Anthony J. Davis will sign a memorandum of understanding on Monday with Home4Me, a nonprofit organization for teens in foster care.

The organization seeks to provide Hope, Opportunities, Mentoring and Education (HOME).

“We believe every teen aging out of foster care should have the option to attend the educational training and/or the college of their choice and their tuition should be paid,” reads the Home4Me website. “Statistics say that 70 percent of teens in foster care desire to attend college yet less than 3 percent graduate due to lack of support, guidance, finances and housing.”

Davis was born to a teenage mother who was 14 years old. The day he was born, his grandmother — their intended caregiver — died. He and his mother both became wards of the state of Connecticut. His foster care mother was reluctant to take in another child, but she agreed to keep him for a weekend. As divine intervention would have it, she said God instructed her to keep the child. She raised Davis to be an intellectual rather than cultivate his athleticism, though he jokes that he still has a mean jump shot.

Davis stayed in foster care until 90 days prior to aging out. At age 17, he joined the U.S. Air Force. Later in life, he was reunited with his biological mother, who passed away last year. Since Davis defied the odds, he wants to address the foster care crisis under his administration at Livingstone College.

Donna Lee Reed, founder and executive director of Home4Me, is a also survivor of the foster care system.