Foster Family shares story of taking in Teen, hopes to inspire others to do the same
Morgan Mayo, a senior at Forsyth Central High School, center, recently moved out of a foster group home to live with Lacey and Scott Jernigan and their twin toddler daughters, Bethany and Lana. The family hopes their story inspires others to foster older kids in the system…
“It doesn’t take long to be around Morgan to see she’s got this amazing personality and is so loving. She’s such a sweet girl, and just needed a little help,” Scott said. “Morgan is super special. Lacey and I, we’re not remarkable; there’s nothing really special about us. We love her and just wanted to be there and support her. She just needed a little stability to be able to get through high school so she could go to college.”
While she was ecstatic to find out, Mayo admitted there were some complicated feelings with leaving the home, where she had made friends and, after living in several foster homes, knew she wouldn’t be taken away from.
“It was actually kind of hard to leave the group home, which sounds really dumb, like, you wouldn’t think I’d be sad to leave it, but everybody made it sound so much worse than it actually seemed,” Mayo said.
Since moving in, both the Jernigans and Mayo said they were surprised just how well things worked out.
“It was weird how easy it was. We didn’t expect that. We knew it was going to be crazy, and ‘How can we do this? We’re already busy,’’’ Lacey said…
