Florida Orphan Will Get a Family After Pleading for One - East Idaho News
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Florida Orphan Will Get a Family After Pleading for One

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ABC 102113 DavionOnly?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1382382539000ABC/BarWal(NEW YORK) — A Florida orphan whose church plea for a family to “love me until I die” has received about 10,000 requests from people asking to adopt him and will “without a doubt” be getting a family, his caseworker said Monday in an appearance with him on ABC’s The View.

Davion Only, 15, took the opportunity of being on national TV on Monday to thank the group homes and foster homes that have “taken good care of me.”  He also apologized for being a “butthead” to some of them when he was younger.

Only has been in foster care his entire life, but has never had a family.  On a recent Sunday, he stood in front of St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church in St. Petersburg, Fla., and made a public plea for a family.

“I’ll take anyone,” Only said. “Old or young, dad or mom, black, white, purple. I don’t care. And I would be really appreciative.  The best I could be.”

The plea has garnered national attention and Only’s adoption agency, Eckerd, has received over 10,000 requests from people asking to adopt him and it looks as though his wish will soon come true.

“Without a doubt, Davion will have a family,” his caseworker Connie Going said on The View Monday.

Going said a lot of the families have already had studies done and those are being reviewed.

“Davion will be extremely involved,” Going said of the process of placing him with a permanent family.  “He knows who he wants, who he can connect to. We need strong families that understand teenagers.”

When asked on the show how he imagines his perfect family, Only said, “Anybody who will love me.”

“It would make me feel really good and I think I’d be more successful and have more opportunities if I had a family,” he said.  “I hope that I do have one.”

Eckerd chief quality officer Ron Zychowski told ABC News the agency has been “overwhelmed in a good way” with thousands of requests for Only, jamming their phone lines and website.

Zychowski said several hundred of the inquiries have expressed openness to adopting other children.

The requests have poured in from across the country and around the world, including calls from Canada, India, Mexico, Australia, Great Britain and Iran.

An adoption for Only would likely take from three to six months because the process involves meetings, background checks and court appearances.

The agency is telling people in the U.S. outside of Florida to contact their local foster care services because “there are Davions in every city in America.”

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

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