people Lisa Kanos The entire family is part of the transition when a foster child leaves, which often times involves helping the biological parents prepare for the child’s arrival. “One time the kids helped us put together the crib and we celebrated the reunion.” Lisa tries to maintain her relationship with other moms so she can continue to be a support. “For some it’s just updates on Facebook, but we have also been invited to birthday parties.” Lisa credits Eckerd Community Alternatives for this new approach to foster parenting. As if eight kids weren’t enough work, Jaime and Lisa also wanted to do something about hunger. They already do a great job of this for customers seven days a week at their family-owned restaurant, the Magnolia Grille in Palm Harbor. But there’s always more. Lisa learned of an organization called “Change This World” and now the Magnolia Grille is raising money to purchase 50,000 meal packets to be delivered to Haiti.
She’s not sure where it came from; it’s just always been there. It was the same with her husband. So when they began their lives together, it was a given they would spend that life helping children. During their 14 years of marriage, Jaime and Lisa Kanos, created two beautiful children, Caroline and Alex, adopted two more beautiful children, Lauren and Eli, fostered eight other children and helped countless others as advocates with the Guardian Ad Litem program. Right now their house is overflowing with love and eight precious children. “What I like about being a foster parent is working alongside the biological parents, encouraging them and giving them a support system to draw from,” said Lisa. “From my experience, the parents are good people who want to be good parents, but haven’t been given the tools. Many of them were foster children themselves and never had a support system.” Sending a child back to the biological parents is both the goal and a joy for Lisa. “I want to use my experience to help them be successful, rather than taking their child away and leaving them to fend for themselves. As a society, isn’t that what we should be doing for each other anyway?”
16 GoodLiving / Volume II, Issue 2
“Once we raise the money, we will need about 150 volunteers to pack dehydrated food into the individual packets and then put loaded pallets onto trucks.” She says she likes knowing that something she touched with love and a prayer will go to help another human being. The fundraiser is called Feed3: Our family feeding your family feeding their family. To participate, just head to Magnolia Grille on a Sunday for a delicious meal of southern favorites that is served family style. The restaurant will donate 25 percent of the proceeds to the Feed3 fund. This special will continue until the money is raised. Lisa says the next fundraiser will support a local charity. If Palm Harbor is too far to drive for a meal, go to Magnoliagrille.net for links to donate cash or buy a t-shirt to support the cause. The site also has online volunteer registration and groups are encouraged to sign up.