Beverly Morton told the Burke County Board of Commissioners on Nov. 17 that she and her family have cared for 31 children over the years and urged the community to recruit and support more foster parents.

"They need a place where they can feel safe, where they can sleep, where they can eat, and they can be comforted," Morton said, describing children who arrived frightened, malnourished and in need of stability. She urged simple community actions — providing a meal, offering a night of babysitting, running errands — that can make fostering more sustainable for families.

County Manager Manning introduced Morton as part of a monthly agenda focus on foster care. Morton described long-term emotional ties with children who she later reunited with parents and the challenges of transitions: "We didn't get to finish raising them. They went back to their home. That's one of the hard parts," she said, recounting the difficulty of reunification and, in one case, later loss of a former ward to suicide.

Morton emphasized practical needs for foster families, including respite and community volunteers. "You can also get certified to be a caregiver to be a babysitter. Babysit for them. Let those foster parents go out to dinner once a month," she said.

Commissioner Brown and others praised Morton's work. Commissioner Brown called the presentation "very moving" and encouraged county faith leaders and residents to support foster families by providing meals and mentoring.

The presentation was part of a broader county initiative the manager described as providing a recurring agenda item to highlight foster-care issues; no formal county action or policy change was proposed at the meeting. Morton and the board urged residents who want to help to contact the county and local partner organizations that assist foster families.