{"id":6712,"date":"2021-05-27T09:54:52","date_gmt":"2021-05-27T19:54:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/?p=6712"},"modified":"2021-06-22T09:55:44","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T19:55:44","slug":"maui-family-fosters-15-children-shedding-light-on-national-foster-care-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/maui-family-fosters-15-children-shedding-light-on-national-foster-care-month\/","title":{"rendered":"Maui family fosters 15 children, shedding light on National Foster Care Month"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Originally story published by KITV on May 25th by&nbsp;Mika Miyashima, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kitv.com\/story\/43960586\/maui-family-fosters-15-children-shedding-light-on-national-foster-care-month\">here.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-vimeo wp-block-embed-vimeo wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Maui family fosters 15 children, shedding light on National Foster Care Month\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/555879970?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Duane and Jonahlyn Pagay of Maui have fostered 15 children since 2015, adopted one, all while raising three keiki of their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Duane first entered the foster care system when he was in elementary school. He and his two brothers were just three of the more than 1,500 keiki in HawaiI who are unable to live with their own families for a variety of reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s substance abuse, there\u2019s finances, there\u2019s alcoholism,\u201d explained Duane. \u201cI just truly feel that no child needs to go through any of that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Duane reunited with his parents in middle school. That&#8217;s when life got rough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He describes jumping out of a window to escape abuse, getting involved with drugs, serving prison time, and at one point even attempting to take his own life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI always wanted someone to save me. At the same time, I wish there was somebody that could help my parents,\u201d said Duane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s why Duane, his wife Jonahlyn, and their three kids, have made it their mission to foster other children in need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSome of these kids, they come back looking like how I felt,\u201d explained Duane. \u201cIt\u2019s very disturbing and really hurts me. But, lucky I have my wife and kids of our own. We do this all together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Pagay\u2019s 9-year-old daughter Jaida says it\u2019s all about making the kids feel welcome in her home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI just tell them, you can take your time and stuff like that, you can get comfortable\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This past February, the Pagay\u2019s adopted one of the 15 keiki they fostered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of kids out there that really needs foster care right now so you know, once one gets reunified, you don\u2019t know that next week they could be calling you like hey, I have a placement,\u201d explained Jonahlyn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Pagay\u2019s message to others who are interested in fostering children but feel they don\u2019t have the time or money for it, is that financial help is available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t do any of this for the money, but the state does help. They do provide you with the room and board which is something that a lot of people don\u2019t know about.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>May is \u201cNational Foster Care Month\u201d. For more information, <a href=\"https:\/\/pidf.org\/huihoomalu\/\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Duane and Jonahlyn Pagay of Maui have fostered 15 children since 2015, adopted one, all while raising three keiki of their own. The Hui Ho\u02bbomalu-trained \u02bbohana shares how they beat the odds and celebrate foster care awareness month. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":6713,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[101,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hui-hoomalu","category-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6712"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6750,"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6712\/revisions\/6750"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pidf.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}