[nagdu] Fw: David Bearden, no ordinary dad
Linda Gwizdak
linda.gwizdak at cox.net
Fri Mar 5 19:36:53 UTC 2010
Hey, Marion.
Kudos to David Beardon for taking in gay youth as well as straight youth.
This is a severely underserved group and nobody wants to foster care them.
Our LGBT Center here operates a supervised apartment building for LGBT
youth.
This was a great story about a great guy!
Lyn and Landon
----- Original Message -----
From: "Marion & Martin" <swampfox1833 at verizon.net>
To: "NAGDU List" <nagdu at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Friday, March 05, 2010 12:56 AM
Subject: [nagdu] Fw: David Bearden, no ordinary dad
Dear All,
I want to share this story about David Bearden. David is a member of the
National Association of Guide Dog Users and serves on the Board of Directors
of the Florida division!
Fraternally yours,
> No ordinary dad, he cares for foster kids while legally blind - St.
> Petersburg TimesLogin|Register
> By Dan DeWitt, Times Columnist
> In Print: Wednesday, March 3, 2010
>
>
> David Bearden is led by his guide dog, Upton, across
> State
> Road 50 east of Brooksville. Bearden, his son and two
> foster
> kids make the daily walk.
> [MAURICE RIVENBARK | Times]
> Guide dog Upton and David Bearden, 52, who is legally
> blind,
> are featured in a book that looks at Bearden's remarkable
> life
> as a foster parent.
> A 9-year-old boy ran into his house after school Monday
> afternoon,
> hugged a man he called "Dad'' and broke the news that he needed
> permission to go on a field trip Friday.
> "How much is that going to cost me?'' asked the father, David
> Bearden.
> "Nothing,'' the boy said. "We're just going to the park. And
> we're
> walking.''
> The familiarity and affection between the adult and the child
> seemed
> ordinary, at least for a happy family. So did the knee-jerk
> worry
> about money, and the child's excitement about getting out of
> class
> for a few hours, even if it was just to the county park a few
> blocks
> from his school, Eastside Elementary, and his house in Hill 'n
> Dale.
> Here's what is not ordinary: Bearden, 52, is the boy's foster
> father, not his legal one. The boy is one of three children who
> live
> with Bearden now and is one of dozens who have passed through
> Bearden's house over the past five years, some of them just for
> a
> few days.
> And Bearden, whose German shepherd guide dog, Upton, lay
> quietly
> by
> his feet when the boy walked in, has been legally blind for 21
> years.
> Mostly because of his work as a foster parent, Bearden is one
> of
> several vision-impaired subjects in a new book, Trust the Dog,
> about
> the Fidelco Guide Dog Foundation. That is the 50-year-old
> nonprofit
> organization that trained Upton and provided him to Bearden two
> years ago.
> Funny how it sometimes takes an outsider to help us fully
> appreciate
> our neighbors.
> This newspaper has written a lot about Bearden's public work -
> fighting for his rights as a blind individual and as former
> president of the National Federation of the Blind for Hernando
> and
> east Pasco counties.
> In years past, he insisted that criminal charges be filed
> against a
> neighbor whose dog attacked Bearden's previous guide dog,
> Isaac,
> and
> against a Brooksville businessman who tried to bar Isaac from
> his
> convenience store.
> Bearden has petitioned - without much success, he said - for
> better
> transportation for blind and disabled Hernando residents. He
> has
> even lobbied in Tallahassee for the rights of blind Floridians.
> But we haven't written much about Bearden's personal life, the
> main
> focus of the chapter about him in Trust the Dog.
> Bearden, a former hospital worker, contracted an infection in
> his
> eyes when he was emptying a bag of medical waste in 1989, he
> said.
> It left him completely blind in one eye and with only 26
> percent
> of
> his vision in the other.
> His wife departed not long afterward. With the occasional help
> of
> his mother, Margarita Romo, executive director of the nonprofit
> Farmworkers Self-Help Inc. in Dade City, he reared three
> daughters
> mostly by himself.
> "I never saw those three girls when they weren't all spiffy, in
> cute
> little hats and cute little dresses,'' Romo said. "I never saw
> them
> dirty or when they looked like they were starving.''
> So, by the time Bearden's oldest daughter, Cristyn, had reached
> her
> teens, he had the experience to take in other children.
> And he had the opportunity. Cristyn had a friend whose parents
> periodically abandoned him at a Brooksville runaway shelter.
> And he really wanted work, even nonpaying work.
> "I can't stand to sit around all day doing nothing,'' Bearden
> said.
> "It's like being in prison when you don't have
> transportation.''
> Since 2004, when he received a state license, he has taken in
> children whose mothers abused crack or alcohol during their
> pregnancies. He has taken in children who had been beaten by
> their
> parents or ridiculed for being openly gay. His adopted son,
> Malcolm,
> 15, was blinded in one eye after being shot with a slingshot as
> a
> toddler.
> "The kids Mr. Bearden works with are some of our most
> challenging
> kids,'' said Nicole Clevinger, a supervisor with Kids Central,
> which
> monitors foster care in Hernando and other nearby counties. "He
> provides structure for those kids. He doesn't give up on them.
> .
> And
> the kids who are placed with him really become his family.''
> How does a blind person keep order in a house full of children,
> some
> of them teenagers with serious behavior problems?
> First, with the exception of one temporary placement, he
> accepts
> only boys. "I can't watch kids whose hormones are flying,'' he
> said.
> Then he makes sure that there are things to do: the park, a
> vegetable garden in the back yard, art supplies so the children
> can
> draw. Malcolm, for example, has notebooks full of skillful
> drawings
> in the Japanese animé style.
> Bearden can hear when children are watching banned television
> programs in their rooms. With the help of a scanner that lights
> and
> magnifies the screen of a laptop, he can check the history of
> Web
> sites visited and block the inappropriate ones.
> Finally, there's Upton.
> "He lets me know if someone leaves the house when they aren't
> supposed to,'' Bearden said. "And if I can't find a child, and
> he's
> been around them long enough, he can find them for me.
> Sometimes
> he's found kids as far away as the park.''
> Upton also has a central role in the family's daily ritual -
> the
> walk to the Hess convenience store at the corner of State Road
> 50
> and Spring Lake Highway. Sometimes it's just for a soda. On
> Monday,
> they planned to eat dinner at the Godfather's Pizza there.
> Bearden is thankful he has a peaceful group of kids now -
> Malcolm
> and two boys, ages 9 and 14, whose names Kids Central asked
> that
> we
> not print. They are good students and all get along.
> Bearden and the youngest boy walk together. The two teenagers
> hang
> back, talking about what their classmates said in school that
> day.
> With the guide dog leading the way, flawlessly following
> commands
> and keeping a course along the side of the pavement, they don't
> look
> ordinary. But they do look like a family.
>
>
> [Last modified: Mar 02, 2010 08:24 PM]
>
>
>
>
_______________________________________________
nagdu mailing list
nagdu at nfbnet.org
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nagdu_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for nagdu:
http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nagdu_nfbnet.org/linda.gwizdak%40cox.net
More information about the NAGDU
mailing list