Lisa and Jorge Alvarez couldn’t get pregnant with kids of their own, so they took in a foster child in hopes of adopting him. That didn’t work out, but it gave them the foster care bug and it has taken some kind of root. Over the past ten years, the Alvarez family has fostered 90 children. “This is very rewarding,” Lisa says. “I love doing it. I realize this is my calling, this is what God had set out for me to do.” They take in no more than five at a time, generally for a year, but sometimes for as many as three years, although the Alvarezes joke that many of the kids never really leave. Lots of them move into the neighborhood once they’re out of the foster care system, just to be close to Lisa and Jorge. Katherine Ramos, a 23-year-old who spent a year with them in their teens, still stops in several times a week. “You know how they say home is where the heart is? This is where my heart is. This is my home. Lisa and Jorge are like angels walking on earth” …
