SACRAMENTO, California (AP) -- When Elizabeth and Dwayne Stearns first met Johnny, he was 14 months old, underweight and had a blank expression on his face. He was wearing dirty clothes and didn't have a single toy.

"I just cried," says Mrs. Stearns, 30. "I knew this was going to be our boy, our son."

That will happen Saturday, when the active toddler, who turns 3 next week, will officially become part of her family. More than 100 other prospective parents will share the feeling, as Sacramento County holds its second Adoption Day.

The program was started to help the county deal with a backlog of cases. But it has turned into a celebration for families adopting children, organizer Bill Fusor said.

"Normally, they do the adoptions in courts, coming in through felons and everything else in criminal courts, so it didn't really celebrate adoption," said Fusor, executive director of the Lilliput Children's Service, a Sacramento adoption agency. "When the kids see 100 other kids getting adopted, they don't feel quite so isolated."

Fusor patterned the event after Los Angeles County's Adoption Day, which finalized more than 300 adoptions in one day. He added that November is National Adoption Month -- designed to raise awareness of adoption.

Nationally, the trend toward large-scale adoption ceremonies is growing, says Michael Kharfen, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Hundreds of family members and friends attended last year's event in Sacramento. Nearly one-third of Sacramento County's 400 adoptions last year took place at the ceremony, with 127 adoptions finalized in one day, Fusor said.

Court changes have reduced the backlog since then and the event is now more of a celebration, he says.

"Some had 15 or 20 people with them, some carried signs. The kids, of course, are dressed to the nines," Fusor says. "In one family, the kids were all in tuxedos."

The children who will be adopted Saturday were put in foster care after being removed from their birth parents due to neglect or abuse, said Jim Perry, branch manager for the family relations court.

Mrs. Stearns said Johnny was abandoned in a motel room by his birth mother when he was 8 months old, then placed in a foster home where he was left in a playpen most of the time.

Now, "he's happy, vocal, interested in everything," she says proudly. "He loves cars, trucks, trains and other kids. He's all boy."

The Stearns are adopting him even though they could have had their own children and already have a biological daughter.

"We wanted to save one from the system and pick a child that normally wouldn't be picked," Mrs. Stearns said. "There's so many children out there."

Fusor hopes such attitudes catch on, and eventually lead to a statewide Adoption Day.

"Wouldn't that be neat?" Fusor asked. "To have over 1,000 kids adopted on the same day."

Copyright 1999 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Families Worldwide
75 East Fort Union Blvd.
Salt Lake City, UT 84047
USA

Fax us: USA 801/562-6008,
or Call us: USA 801/562-6185

Send comments and mail to Webmaster