English couple Margaret Isdale and her husband Robert decided to welcome a teenage girl into their home for foster care back in 1978.
Now almost 40 years later, they are receiving a lifetime achievement award, because the octogenarians have fostered an incredible 150 children and teenagers.
They’ve seen many dramatic circumstances, including a boy who had to have a kidney removed, and a child who came with no possessions of any kind apart from a set of pajamas, but they have no plans on slowing down.
From the town of Grantham in Lincolnshire, they received a lifetime achievement award from Lincolnshire Foster Services, whose administrator, Michelle Sawmynaden, was in awe of the pair, saying that over their 46 years of raising other people’s children, lots of them have either gone back to their birth families or gone on to be adopted.
“It’s really quite humbling. It’s not about us, it’s about the kids we look after—they’re the important ones,” said Margaret, on the occasion of the award.
Their years have seen the love they offer children manifest in different ways. There was Kim, who was 4 years old when she entered the Isdale household with a heart complication and Down syndrome. They traveled as much as they could with her before she passed away at age 21.
In other cases, there are happier endings, such as a child for whom they were asked to be the godparents. They had two children of their own, and even in their older age, they’re still going strong—fostering an eight-month-old baby.
“People say, how can you hand them over? Well, that’s part of what we do, and sometimes when you hand [a child] over the adoptive parents or birth parents keep in touch and they say how appreciative they are,” said Mr. Isdale. “That in itself is a reward.”
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