“I knew when I built my family it would be partially through adoption. Why don’t you make that your focus? Do what you need to do to build that.’ Many years later, a friend said to me, ‘You care passionately about kids getting families. I stood by the car window, waving, but she was staring down, not meeting my eyes. I don’t know where she was going to live next or why she left our house. She was sitting in the back seat of a car with a suitcase beside her, and bags of new clothes my parents got her on her lap. “A memory that lives in me is the moment the 10-year-old left.
I saw up close what it was like for kids who didn’t have families of their own, and it always stuck with me that this was a terrible thing. One girl was with us from the ages of 8 to 10, and the other girl lived with us when she was 16 and left when she was 18. “My parents were foster parents to two different girls at various times during my childhood. On the personal history that was the catalyst for Silverman’s work in fostering and adoption: In a recent Zoom call, Silverman highlighted Second Nurture’s history, plans for the organization and her experience as a foster sister. “The government motherf*****g backed off and cited movement as why,” the younger Silverman said. Introducing her big sister, the younger Silverman described her as “kick-ass” and “awesome.” She cited her sister’s activism as a member of the board of Women of the Wall nd on behalf of African asylum seekers in Israel. Silverman recently appeared with her celebrity sibling, the comic Sarah Silverman, at a fundraiser for Second Nurture in Los Angeles. I hope in the next three years Second Nurture will land in Chicago and Boston.” I would love to open in Boston, but we need to fundraise more for that to happen. Silverman recently told JewishBoston: “There’s way more interest than we have capacity for right now. Other synagogues are on deck, pending hiring additional staff. Networks of support include the wider membership of the communities where cohorts are based, and community culture is cultivated to introduce fostering and adoption as essential values within a community.Ĭurrently, Silverman and her organization are working with three partner synagogues in Los Angeles County. The concept is the mainstay of Second Nurture. Silverman is convinced that pursuing foster care and adoption as a cohort that functions as a mutually supportive group is an important marker for success.
From there, Second Nurture evolved into a unique three-part model-cohort, networks of support and community culture-distinct for its intentional and wholehearted embrace of community. Thomas was the founder of Wendy’s fast-food restaurants and was himself adopted. With those caveats in mind, Silverman secured funding from sources that included the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption and Aviv Foundation. As Silverman met hundreds of people, she realized more people would foster and adopt if they had a path laid out for them that included fellowship and support. Second Nurture started to take shape five years ago as Silverman toured the United States and Canada promoting her book, “ Casting Lots: Creating a Family in a Beautiful, Broken World,” a memoir about Adar’s adoption.