Reese Barcelon
- A couple named Mike and Camille Gerardi worked together at a hospital back in the day and decided to adopt kids who need special attention.
- They adopted children with birth defects or injuries, and those who became disabled due to an illness.
- Unfortunately, Mike died from cancer last year, but his wife continued their mission.
There are a lot of cases of children with special needs all over the world.
Some of them were born with a deficiency, while the others developed a disability caused by their illness. Not everyone can put up with such children as the way they interact is harder than dealing with the ones who are perfectly normal. Given the fact that they are special cases, some kids also tend to have mood swings which make it even harder for a parent or a guardian to take care of these children.
However, there are some people who dedicated their lives caring for such children even when they aren’t really related to them.
Two of the people with a golden heart was Mike Gerardi and Camille Gerardi from Georgia.
The couple crossed paths back in 1973 at the Miami Children’s Hospital where they were both working as medical professionals. Camille was a nurse, while Mike was a pediatrician. One thing that they have in common is the fact that they both had passion and genuine concern for children with a disease or disability.
When they met, Camille had already fostered three children into her home to care for them personally and make them feel loved by adding them to her family. But when Mike proposed to her, he told her that he also wanted the same thing and do more for these kids.
“When Mike asked me to marry him, I told him I want to make a home for handicapped kids, and he said ‘I want to follow your dream,’” Camille told CNN.
The two got married and fulfilled their dream right after.
Surprisingly, over the last four decades of their marriage, the couple had already adopted a total of eighty-eight children with special needs who were given constant support and attention that the kids deserved.
Despite the couple’s good intention, things weren’t easy for them as well. They once lost their home due to the occurrence of a hurricane in the year 1992, and moved again in 2011 after their home in North Carolina was struck by lightning and turned into ashes.
However, the challenges didn’t stop to the couple from fulfilling their dreams and managed to start a new. As a matter of fact, they were able to create their own family and had three children.
Sadly, Camille’s husband died in the previous year after his fight with cancer. Despite the unfortunate occurrence, Mike was able to live a wonderful life after they adopted dozens of orphans from the hospital and gave them a better life that they had.
Camille revealed, “The children I took in were expected to die, but so many of them have lived.”
Through the years they spent caring for those children, they lost 32 children, but the rest have gone on and lived a comfortable life. As an example, the couple’s oldest living adopted child named Darlene, who is at the age of 32 is living wonderfully in a group home in Florida.
Furthermore, the couple also established another way to help more disabled children through the Possible Dream Foundation for their education to job training.
Up to this day, Camille is still dedicated to continuing what she and her husband had started. In the present, she has 20 children in her custody to look after.
What are your thoughts about Camille and her deceased husband’s works? If you have the means to do so, would you do the same?
