Football is a great way for the father and son to bond. Cameron is 7 years old, and he has big dreams for his future.
“We’re going to see you on the NFL on Sundays, right?” Darren said to Cameron. “See. He’s working on it. He’s working on it,” Darren cheered.
Carter and his wife became Cameron’s foster parents when he was two months old and adopted him when he was 2 years old.
“There wasn’t really a decision,” he said. “He came and he chose us. We chose him and the love was already there.”
He said they have fostered 12 children over the eight years they’ve been foster parents.
“The majority of them have been reunified with their parents or some type of guardian, and thankfully we’ve had constant contact with them,” Carter said. “We’re like God-parents of many of them.”
According to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, nearly 15,000 children are in the foster system. Cuyahoga County has the most children in care in Ohio with 1,965.
“So, we need people that’s going to accept these children into their home, love them like their own, because you never know what that seed that you plant into them, how that grows for them,” Carter said. “You may be the only bright speck of hope that they have.”
Carter doesn’t have any biological children, but that doesn’t make him any less of a dad.
“I love to be grateful with him,” Cameron said.
It’s important for this father to dispel stereotypes of absent dads and show what it means to be an active part of your child’s life.
“No matter where you sit, whether you’re an uncle, step, foster, adoptive, whatever they may qualify us as, bottom line, we’re fathers,” Carter said.
This Father’s Day, Carter is reflecting on the responsibility and reward of fatherhood.
“You can’t beat that,” he said. “So no job, no work status, no this, can take the place of watching your child grow and be a good human being. That is it for me. That is it for me.”
Carter owns Carter’s BBQ which is hosting a fundraiser at 4 p.m. on June 18 at Beachwood Truck Park.
The funds raised will benefit foster youth through SAFY of Cleveland, and a minimum donation of $30 is requested.