(Posted 7:30 a.m., May 7)
Orléans foster mom receives Civic Appreciation Award
By Fred Sherwin
Orléans Online

Fallingbrook resident LaDorna Penteluk received a Civic Appreciation Award for Citizen of the Year in the senior category on Thursday. Fred Sherwin/Photo

LaDorna Penteluk is one of those people you don't meet often in life, a completely selfless individual who does what she does because it gives her life purpose and it gives purpose to the lives of hundreds of other people.

In LaDorna`s life the purpose is fostering. Since 1959, when she took in her eight-month-old niece during her sister and brother-in-laws eight month separation, she has fostered over 450 kids, many of them with developmental disabilities.

Ìn fact, she still fosters, making her the longest serving foster parent with the Children`s Aid Society of Ottawa at 51 years and counting.

On Thursday night, LaDorna was a co-recipient of the Citizen of the Year. Civic Appreciation Award in the senior category.

Up until four years ago, LaDorna lived on Hiawatha Park in Convent Glen North where she owned a large home with her late husband. They first moved to the area in 1956, fours days before a CF-100 fighter jet crashed into the Residence St-Louis, starting a massive fire that would claim the lives of 11 nuns.

"When we first moved out here it was all rural. So we used to have kids visiting almost every weekend," says LaDorna.

After the couple looked after LaDorna's niece, someone from the Children's Aid Society asked them if they would consider becoming foster parents full-time.

"We kid of looked at each other and said 'I don't think so', but we ended up saying yes to try it out and our first foster kids were a brother and sister," recalls LaDorna who had three other young children at the time.

The couple ended up adopting the young girl after the boy was moved to another house. Here name is Brenda. They would go on to adopt two other foster kids, one of whom, Coleen, lives with LaDorna and co-parents the kids.

LaDorna almost gave up fostering in 1969 when her husband passed away, but it was one of her foster children who kept her going.

"I had a boy who was developmentally handicapped at the time. His name was Andre and he was 15-years-old," says LaDorna. "Everyone was really attached to him, but unfortunately he died in his sleep the next year. It was from natural causes, but it was similar to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). It was terrible. For years afterwards, anytime I had a child and they didn't respond when I called them I would start to panic."

LaDorna is constantly asked why she does it, and the answer is simpler than you would think.

"I do it because these kids need to be taught what unconditional love is. If they grow up without love than they will never now what real love is when they get married and become parents," says LaDorna who turns 80 next year.

Her biological and adopted children are already planning to celebrate the milestone with a reunion. It should be one heck of a party.

(This story was made possible thanks to the generous support of our local business partners.)

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