WASHINGTONIANS OF THE YEAR 2 0 0 3
Washingtonian Magazine, January 2004
Since 1997, Foster has been volunteer head of the Little Blue House, an early-childhood development center for abused and neglected children. Up to eight DC preschoolers live there, for days or a year or two.
They can’t see? They get glasses. They won’t talk? They get therapy. They shrink from strangers? They get held and fed and loved and read to, and soon they’re smiling back and playing with everyone else on the water slide Carl built in the backyard.
But while the kids see fun, food, and learning, Foster and his staff and volunteer network put in at least as much research and advocacy. “We will see to it that each child’s needs are met,” he says. That involves a small army of pro bono lawyers, social workers, doctors, therapists, nutritionists, psychologists, and more. It means testifying in court, taking children to their first dental appointment and first non-McDonald’s restaurant, rescuing crisis cases from car trunks at 2 AM.
How did the man who’s been called both “fierce“ and “DC’s version of Mr. Rogers“ make it here from a public-housing project in Hartford, Connecticut? Determination and smarts. “My younger brother died of carelessness and not listening to his family,” says Foster, who did a tour in Vietnam before college and a succession of radio jobs. “I had just interviewed Candy Lightner of MADD. She said, ’You need to do something with this.’ “ He did, mentoring troubled preteens at Sasha Bruce Youthworks, sticking with them when no one else would. That was 1986; he’s still in touch with many of those young people.
At the Little Blue House, the children are smaller, but the problems often are bigger. Most foster children have at least one chronic medical condition; most of their mothers are on drugs, officials say. Nearly all such children get routed into special education, whether they belong there or not. But not one child has left LBH for special ed. “Ours are adopted first, because they leave here healthy,” says Foster. “When we place children, they stay. The rest of the system can’t say that.”
As one fan puts it, “Carl’s tireless advocacy is nothing short of heroic.”