The winners will be presented their awards tonight at Bethany s Family Awards Dinner at Isle of Capri Conference Center in Bettendorf. When people find out Ann Burke is a foster mother and adoptive parent, they often say, That s so nice of you. But she sees it differently. I m the one that is being rewarded. I have been rewarded in more ways than people could ever imagine, the Long Grove single parent said.
Life is good.
When Burke decided to become a foster parent, she was married at the time with two children. I always wanted more children, and I thought this was a good way to enlarge the family without actually going through another pregnancy. My kids were very supportive, and the experience has been very rewarding for all of us. Burke, now divorced, ended up adopting two of the children she had been a foster mother to for a few years. They are now 4 and 7 years old.