Newsroom

Zoey didn’t know the joy of opening Christmas presents, the anticipation of putting a lost tooth under her pillow for the Tooth Fairy or the peace of returning to a stable home after a day at school. Her earliest memories were of abuse and neglect. Those missing pieces were gradually put back together by her foster/adoptive family and the efforts of a CASA volunteer.

“From the moment she walked into our lives, she just fit,” said mom Lindsey. “Despite what she had been through, her joy was contagious.”

Her job as a detective was well defined: Save the child’s life. Gather details. File charges against the abuser. Once those things were accomplished, her job was done. “I never saw the children after that.”

As a CASA volunteer, she picks up where her old job left off. She fights for the child. Whatever that child needs, Marta will be there to assist.

“Bobby made the best of where he was, and he tried his best, no matter what,” said his CASA volunteer, Terri, who was assigned to his case more than two years ago. She advocated for Bobby in many ways; she attended parent-teacher night to meet his teachers, she advocated in the early stages of Bobby’s placement for a calling and visitation schedule with his mother, and later, that the foster family adopt him.

“I got to see a different side of him and the situation he was coming from,” she said. “His mother loved him very much. She might not have been the greatest at showing it, but she loved him.”