Any parent may agree that raising one child for 18+ years can be a tough job, but what about raising 600 kids over the span of 50 years?
Linda Herring (75) has been doing just that in her Johnson County, Iowa community since the ’70s.
The foster parent with a big heart started fostering kids while also running a home daycare business during the day, and working night’s at a local high school where she was a custodian . . . and for 50 years has volunteered as a first responder!
A statement from Johnson County officials states, “Linda mostly fostered young children and children with special medical needs and kept bins of clothes in her garage, stacked to the ceiling, labaeled by size and gender.” Continuing, “No one had to worry about a child going without clothes at Linda’s, even if they arrived with nothing but what they were wearing.”
One of her foster children she later adopted, Anthony Herring, shares, “It’s hard to say in words he impact. She was always available and ready for a child in need.”
Anthony, who began being fostered by Linda when he was three years old, continues, “These kids were usually taken from a traumatic situation and she’d take them in, provide a warm bed, clean clothes, warm meals, and love. She also worked hard to keep families together. Keeping siblings together. Helping biological parents make the changes needed to be able to keep their children.”
A small, but meaningful, effort to make every child she fostered feel more at home was to get a professional photograph taken of them that was then placed on living room walls.
After five decades and 600 kids, Linda had to announce her retirement from fostering back in the Fall of ’19 due to her own health concerns.
However, Linda’s legacy will continue to live on . . . as five of her biological children and three of her grandchildren have become foster parents as well.
The Johnson County Board of Supervisors honored Linda with a special ceremony of appreciation, for all that she has done and for those she continues to inspire to help others.
