A Wendy’s Wonderful Kids Adoption Success Story

As a child growing up in a stable home, you’re afforded a lot of assumptions. It’s safe for you to assume you’ll eat breakfast before school in the morning. That you’ll hold a parent’s hand on the way to the bus stop. And that you’ll come home to a warm bed at the end of your day.  

Unfortunately, this is not reality for many children in foster care that enter the Wendy’s Wonderful Kids® (WWK) program, including Maya and Hannah.

Raised by their biological parents who were addicted to drugs, Maya and Hannah endured years of abuse and uncertainty. It wasn’t until two years ago, when Maya met her new adoptive parents, that she says she felt like she could finally be a kid. She was 14 years old.

This National Adoption Awareness Month, we’re honored to share the story of these two incredible young women and their family whose lives have forever been changed thanks to the WWK program and their adoption recruiter, Laura.  

Wendy’s Wonderful Kids, the signature program of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption® (DTFA), imagines a world where every child is guaranteed safety, love and, ultimately, a permanent family. Wendy’s and the DTFA are passionate about finding forever families for children in foster care. So passionate, that WWK recruiters now average nearly seven adoptions a day.

Watch Maya and Hannah’s story, in their own words, to learn more about the impact of foster care adoption.

For six years, Maya and Hannah bounced between foster homes and living with their birth parents. They suffered incredible pain and neglect. "Maya kept me alive, I would have been scared if we had been separated," says Hannah.