BY MICHAEL ACKER
Staff Writer
SAYREVILLE – Already this year, eight New Jersey children have been killed by family members, some of them newborn infants.
It is such statistics that have prompted 45-year-old Piscataway resident Sandra McKoy to work on creating a foster home for abandoned children and boarder babies in central New Jersey by the end of 2007.
“Some babies are not necessarily abandoned,” McKoy said. “Some are left at the hospital because the mother has an addiction.”
This Saturday, McKoy will hold a walk-a-thon for this cause in Sayreville’s Kennedy Park. The event marks her first significant step in raising money and awareness for her newly incorporated nonprofit organization, Touch Love Ministries. She hopes to have between 500 and 1,000 people attend the walk-a-thon, though only 60 had signed up to walk by last week.
Children who are left in hospitals often go through the foster care system, McKoy said, and they wind up being sent from foster home to foster home. The home she wants to see built would allow abandoned children and boarder babies to live a more grounded life than they might have had otherwise.
Boarder babies are often abandoned or held by hospitals at first in order to ensure that the baby will survive, as some of them may suffer from drug withdrawal if their mother is addicted to drugs, McKoy said.
Another concern of McKoy’s is with regard to discarded babies. These are babies who are abandoned illegally and are often found dead.
“I do not want anymore discarded babies,” McKoy said. “I want young people to know, because many females feel that there is no way out and that causes them to do that harm. I want to let them know that [this is] an organization that can stand in the gap with them. I am someone they can turn to.”
Babies can be abandoned legally, McKoy said, noting that this is done at fire stations, hospitals and police departments. Ultimately, abandoned babies wind up in foster care, she said.
“[Parents] can abandon their baby without legal ramifications,” McKoy said. “I want to stop them from killing their babies. I would also like young men to know that if they get a girl pregnant, that they can leave a baby for adoption without any questions asked.”
While McKoy keeps a journal logging all the incidents of abandonment in the news, she said she has been told by hospital staff that many incidents go unknown to the general public.
“Can you imagine what is not reported,” McKoy asked, citing the story of a woman who allegedly killed her baby
when she was 15 years old and turned herself in six years later.
“I want to be a part of the solution to stop the killing,” McKoy said. “These girls have to live with the pain for the rest of their lives. I want to prevent that. I want there to be prevention medicine to these people, because I do not think we can stop them from getting pregnant. We as a society need to take a closer look at this.”
McKoy is currently researching grant opportunities, and hoping to get private foundations and investors to donate to her cause. The funds from the walk-a-thon would cover the organization’s day-to-day costs and equipment needs, McKoy said. The organization currently has three part-time volunteers who help McKoy when they can.
McKoy will attend Kean University next week as part of a faith-based program for executive directors of nonprofit organizations, and she hopes to learn more about grant writing and gain new management skills.
“This is my mission,” McKoy said, “This would fulfill my dream. I do not know how exactly it will unfold, but I do need a home for these babies. I am educating myself and taking the necessary steps to go forward.”
The home would have 10 bedrooms, and she would likely start out with eight babies. Trained staff will be used, and she is in the process of attaining the necessary licenses with the state Division of Youth and Family Services [DYFS] and the Adoption Resource Center.
“They can stay there as long as needed,” McKoy said of the children who would stay at the home. “No child will be put out of the home because of an age cutoff.”
McKoy, originally from Jamaica, lived in Paterson from 1971-94. She has lived in Piscataway since 1995.
A graduate of the early childhood education program at William Paterson University, McKoy, who volunteers at a Newark hospital to care for boarder babies, said she has several years’ experience in the classroom as a full-time teacher. She said she will use that experience to give motivational speeches at public schools, which is the first phase of her program.
McKoy’s message to young people is to practice abstinence first, but if they have a baby that they cannot care for, they have the option of leaving the baby for adoption at a hospital or police station.
McKoy said she remembers being a teenager and telling her mother that she would one day operate her own orphanage. In 1990, she adopted her son, Tameer, when he was 4 years old.
Although she currently has a board working in an advisory capacity, McKoy hopes to have a working board, including an attorney, accountant, and bank and insurance representatives working for Touch Love Ministries in the near future.
McKoy attends church at Faith Fellowship Ministries on Chevalier Avenue in Sayreville. A minister at the church has committed to constructing a home for the organization or remodeling an already existing home through grant money.
“I do not have the cash, but I have the dream and the passion,” McKoy said. “To get the funds allocated into the organization, I am reaching out to the public.”
Mayor Kennedy O’Brien said he and his wife support the mission of Touch Love Ministries.
“It is something that I can do that strikes a very personal cord inside,” O’Brien said.
The mayor, who plans to be at the walk-a-thon Saturday, said he admires McKoy for her passion.
“She is very passionate about her work,” O’Brien said. “She has a calling for it. I have great respect for people that are passionate about their ideas. They are the ones that change the world.”
For more information on Touch Love Ministries, go to www.touchloveministries.org or call (732) 235-1194.