2. JOHNSTOWN MAGAZINE • JULY 2014 41
Ali Spear and her mom
drink water from matching color-
ful plastic cups. The cups have built-in straws and lids, which is
good for the active toddler as well as her mom, Donna, who will
drop everything quickly when Ali gets the urge to use her little
potty chair.
“She’s doing a great job with toilet training,” beams Donna
Spear, whose love for her young daughter is apparent.
The Spear family is just one of many families to open their
homes to foster children through Professional Family Care Serv-
ices (PFCS), a private, non-profit Johnstown-based agency that
contracts with county children and youth agencies to place
young people who need a place to
stay.
While each county has its own foster families, the counties
can call on PFCS when there is a need beyond their own
resources.
For various reasons — including neglect, abuse, death and
parental illness — many children need a place to live outside of
their own home, at least for a little while. PFCS, whose service
area covers 16 counties in Southwestern Pennsylvania, coordi-
nates the foster care process, from recruiting qualified foster par-
ents to connecting them with children in need to supporting
the families every step of the way.
Forget what you know about foster chil-
dren from TV crime shows. The reality is
verydifferentforlocalchildrenwhoneed
atemporaryhomewhentheirownhomes
aren’t the best place for them.
By Dianne Frye DeLisa
Photos by Todd Berkey/The Tribune-Democrat
3. uth Glosser started the agency in 1982 in
an apartment above her garage,” says
Lynette Ponchione Gruca, PFCS execu-
tive director. “In the early days, there were just a few
families and one caseworker.” Currently, PFCS has
about 85 children, five caseworkers, three supervisors
and one coordinator involved in the foster care pro-
gram.
At one time, it wasn’t uncommon for children to be
in the foster care system for many years. Then, in an ef-
fort to accelerate permanent placement, the Adoption
and Safe Families Act of 1997 was put into place. The
act requires states to initiate court proceedings to free
a child for adoption once that child had been in foster
care for at least 15 of the most recent 22 months, un-
less there is an exception.
“The goal of foster care is to have a positive effect on
a child's life by taking care of the here and now — keep
them safe, give them nurturing, love, clothes, medical
care, education and relationships that build a strong
base that they can take with them to their permanent
homes either with their birth parents, adoptive parents
or legal guardians,” says Gruca.
Both foster parenting organizations and their fami-
lies agree that a lot of people have misconceptions
about foster kids and parents. “Foster care often gets
a bad rap. TV shows focus on foster kids who do ter-
rible things — and they seem to blame it on foster care,
when the bad thing is what happened to the child that
caused them to be separated from their family. The fos-
ter care is what allows them to be safe and nurtured
and have all their needs met,” says Gruca.
“It is very frustrating when you see movies and
videos blaming foster care for bad situations,” says
Marie Kalinyak, PFCS casework supervisor. “You don’t
hear all the wonderful things that these families do —
you only hear the tiniest percent of times when things
might go wrong.”
In this region alone, there are plenty of foster care
stories that have definitely “gone right.”
“Protected by God”
(The Spear Family)
Donna Spear and her husband, David, have four
grown biological children, but five years ago their fam-
ily dynamic started to change when they became
42 JULY 2014 • JOHNSTOWN MAGAZINE
R“
David and Donna Spear with their adopted
daughter Ali, 3.
4. foster parents. “I like being a mom,” says
Spear, of Westmont. “When we started,
so many different church sermons and
other things we heard were talking about
taking care of the orphans and I thought,
‘How do you take care of orphans?’ And
then I ran into a woman who was a foster
parent.”
The Spears went through the extensive
application process — including clear-
ances, references, health and financial
screenings — and then completed the
mandatory 21 hours of training.
Spear preferred to take in younger kids
— four years old and younger. “Families
know their strengths and preferences,”
says Gruca. “Families can specify their
comfort level when it comes to what types
of children they are willing to care for. We
want to match the needs of the child with
the strengths of the foster family.”
In the past five years, the Spears have
fostered a total of 24 children — some for
many months and some just overnight.
“The first little boy we had for six months,
and we were his fourth foster home.
There’s a special place in my heart for
him. And then we had a sibling group of
three — all under three years old and
none of them toilet trained or able to talk.
The oldest child we had was an eight-
year-old girl; we were her fourth foster
home and we had her for 10 months. I
feel like we did a lot of good for her,” says
Spear.
And then there’s Alisha — or “Ali” as
the Spears call her. They picked her name
because it means “protected by God.” Ali
has also been protected by the Spears in a
profound way. Ali’s story with the Spears
starts the day she was born almost three
years ago. “PFCS called us in June 2011
to say they had a newborn baby to place.
That’s what I wanted all along! I was re-
ally thrilled, but I tried not to get too ex-
cited because sometimes things change,”
says Spear.
But the planned placement happened
when Ali came to the Spear’s home di-
rectly from the hospital four days after she
was born, weighing just 4 pounds 13
ounces. “I just looked at her and I loved
her,” beams Spear. But the story that now
has a happy ending certainly was not an
easy one. Ali had, and continues to strug-
gle with, medical and developmental is-
sues.
“Because she was so tiny, she couldn’t
suck. They eventually taught us a tech-
nique where you squeeze her little cheeks
to get her to suck. I set my alarm for every
two hours to feed her for weeks and
weeks and weeks. And it took an hour just
to get 2 ounces of formula in her,” says
Spear. And that was just the beginning.
The following three years have been
marked by terrifying trips to Conemaugh
Memorial Medical Center in Johnstown
and Childrens Hospital of Pittsburgh to
address multiple diagnoses, including se-
vere gastroesophageal reflux disease
(GERD), floppy windpipe, which impairs
breathing, frequent bouts of pneumonia
and others. The family negotiated her
medical problems by trying six different
infant formulas, suctioning out Ali’s air-
way during heart-wrenching choking
spells, and working with agencies to ad-
dress her different developmental delays.
“I prayed a lot. I had never wanted to
adopt. I thought, ‘Let someone who is
younger get that chance.’ But after all our
history and considering her fragile health,
we started the process and adopted her in
November. I just love her dearly,” says
Spear.
Kalinyak speaks with admiration of the
Spears and all foster families, saying, “For
some people, it’s really a calling and they
just have this need to help a child. Some-
times they can do that best by really being
there when they need someone the most.
But it’s not easy being a foster parent.”
Besides Ali’s health struggles, Spear also
notes that she herself turned 50 years old
just eight days after adopting Ali. “I had
my first child when I was 23. My kids are
having kids. It’s been wild,” says Spears.
“But like I tell people all the time — you
can’t go into this for yourself. It’s all
about the kids.”
“A Good, Soft Spot to
Land”
(The Geibig Family)
Sharon Geibig, like Donna Spear, lives
in Westmont, and started her foster par-
enting journey about six years ago. But
Geibig’s story is different, as they all are.
“Families are different, children are dif-
ferent, and their issues are different,” says
Gruca. “Foster parents have to really love
kids, be very flexible and open-minded.”
Geibig has three grown children from a
previous marriage and two teenage sons
with her husband, Tim. “I’ve always
wanted to become a foster parent —
probably since my oldest kids were little,”
says Geibig. “When the timing was right,
Tim was fully on board. We wanted to
wait until our youngest kids were a bit
older.”
JOHNSTOWN MAGAZINE • JULY 2014 43
Thinking of Becoming a Foster Parent?
“There’s always a need for families to open up their homes and help out a
child when they most need it,” says Marie Kalinyak, PFCF casework supervisor.
If you are considering fostering a child or if you’re just curious about the pro-
gram, a good place to start is the Professional Family Care Services website:
www.pfcs.org.There you’ll find information and testimonials from families who
have decided to become foster parents.
The website provides details about foster parenting and how PFCS coordi-
nates the process and provides continuous support to families who decide to
enter the program.You’ll find some things to consider and the benefits of fos-
ter parenting as well as the requirements,including the application,clearances,
references and training.
Professional Family Care Services (PFCS)
www.pfcs.org
814-255-9559
800-736-7837
5. When their sons were 9 and 11, the
Geibigs opened their doors to their first
foster child, a five-year-old boy, who
stayed with them for 10 months. Follow-
ing him were two brothers that they had
for more than two years, a few short-term
stays, including a couple babies for a few
months, a brother and sister and two sis-
ters. They also kept a nine-year-old boy
for a year; he left this past Christmas.
While the nine-year-old was with them,
they got their current foster son, a 15-
year-old boy who goes to school with the
Geibig’s biological children.
“I just really enjoy kids,” says Geibig,
who is a part-time instructional aide at
Westmont Elementary School. “And I
like having a full house. We had a lot of
space and it just seemed like God put
everything into place to do it. It felt like a
way that I could give back that was in my
niche — kids. And I always thought our
home is a good, soft spot to land while
they’re in transition.”
Geibig says people are often shocked
when they find out that they’re foster par-
ents. In fact, she says both the parents and
the kids often get a bad rap. “For the
most part, the bad stories you hear about
in the news are just isolated situations.
Once you put these kids in a different en-
vironment, they turn around. Once they
feel safe, loved, fed and warm, and they
know that they’ll be in bed at 8:30, they
really thrive.
“On the flip side, sometimes foster par-
ents get a bad rap. They say they do it for
the money, but when we started, I didn’t
even know that we received money. And
the foster parents that I have met are
amazing people and are doing it for the
right reasons. Their stories blow my mind
— some of these people have adopted and
taken on guardianship of dozens of kids.
I feel like I’ll never live up to some of
them,” Geibig says.
“I Love the Energy in my
House”
(The Gaydos Family)
Karen Gaydos and her husband, Frank,
have brought in 40 foster kids to their
Belsano home in the past 14 years. And
they didn’t all come one at a time. The
Gaydoses are in their mid-50s and raised
two biological children, now 35 and 31.
But their nest is far from empty. Living
with them now is a 17-year-old foster son
and three children they adopted after fos-
tering them.
44 JULY 2014 • JOHNSTOWN MAGAZINE
Case workers (sitting
from left) Megan Fogle
and Shean Billings;
(standing from left)
Heidi Hardwork and
Michelle Mahan.
6. JOHNSTOWN MAGAZINE • JULY 2014 45
“We didn’t have adoption in our
mind — not even a remote possibility,”
Gaydos says. “We really thought their
birth parents were getting their lives to-
gether, but it wasn’t meant to be.”
Their adopted children are 18, 13,
and 9 years old. Gaydos obviously loves
them and everything that comes with
being their mom. “I love the energy in
my house. Sometimes I just can’t get
enough of them. Other days, I think to
myself, ‘Are you still doing this?’” Gay-
dos says with a chuckle. But it’s clear
that she loves the life that foster par-
enting has created for her.
Gaydos will be the first to admit that,
just like with biological children, it’s
not always easy to foster kids. “Some
people make the mistake of getting all
emotional and romantic about it,” she
says. “You can’t go into it thinking it’s
for you – you have to be totally self-sac-
rificing. There’s a lot of satisfaction in
it, but you have to be cut out for it.
Between January and October of
last year, the Gaydoses had six children
under their roof — their three adopted
children and three foster children.
“Whether you’re cooking four pork
chops or 10 pork chops — the mess is
about the same. At some point, it does-
n’t matter,” Gaydos says. “Our family
is inspected for the foster program
every year around February. Every year
my husband and I sit by the Christmas
tree and ask ourselves if we should be
done with fostering. But then we think,
‘How can we have a Christmas without
any kids in our house?’ There will be a
day (when we’re done), but it’s not
yet,” Gaydos says.
Each of their stories are different, but
there is a common theme. The stories
are about people who go out of their
way to put others’ needs before their
own. These people sacrifice their time
and energy for especially vulnerable
members of our society. The staff at
Professional Family Care Services is
grateful to the Gaydoses, Geibigs,
Spears and all of their foster families
who are filling the needs of area chil-
dren in a particularly generous and lov-
ing way. JM PRESTIGE REALTY
814-269-4411
814-244-8687 (Direct)
HelenDugan@
ColdwellBanker.com
