6 Kids Cope While Mom Goes Off To Rebuild Life

Abandoned by her husband and unable to support six children on a welfare check, a woman dropped them off at the same Christian school where she was raised.

She said she’d come back for her children, as soon as she gets an education and a decent job. The children said they understand.

“I think she made a good decision,” 9-year-old Alicia told WFTV in Orlando. “She loves us.”

Said her 8-year-old brother, Cody: “She sent us here because she could get a job and go back to college and get some money so she can buy us a house and get us back.”

Two months have passed, and now the Christian Home and Bible School is trying to find the money to keep the kids from being removed and placed with foster parents.

School President James Moore said the woman knew she was leaving the children in a “place where the kids would be loved, hugged and cared for. She was looking for safety, security and opportunity for her children.”

The children are 12-year-old James; 9-year-old Alicia; 8-year-old Cody; and 5-year-old triplets Justin, Andrew and John.

Moore asked that their last name and their mother’s name not be used because the family doesn’t want the biological father to find his children. He wouldn’t elaborate.

The older children live in one of the four group homes on the school’s 70-acre campus, supervised by surrogate parents. The triplets live with foster parents off-campus.

The children see each other every day at meals, in school and at church services and are adjusting well to their new homes, although James, 12, is having the hardest time, teachers and surrogate parents say.

“They’re well-mannered children,” said Judy Alexander, the surrogate mother. “They’ve been raised very well up until this point.”

Alexander said the children’s mother writes them frequently and calls every Friday. She has made plans to visit, although her financial circumstances make that difficult.

Keeping the six children at the 700-student school will cost roughly $83,000 a year. The school has received a handful of donations since the children’s circumstances were publicized, Moore said.