- December 16, 2025
Twelve children, including four from Flagler County, were legally adopted Nov. 18 by ‘forever’ families.
Hundreds gathered on the second floor of the Sunset Harbor Yacht Club in Daytona Beach Friday, Nov. 18, to ring in the adoptions of 12 children from Volusia and Flagler counties.
The Community Partnership for Children, with the Seventh Judicial Circuit and the Florida Department of Children and Families, held the ceremony on National Adoption Day to finalize the adoptions of the dozen youngsters, including four from Flagler County.
Representatives from DCF spoke on the value, and blessing, of family. A young singer performed. A sixth-grader in a blue-and-white costume danced to jazz
“It’s been a hard life,” the song went, as she twirled and kicked. “It’s been a long time coming, but I know change is going to come.”
To Community Partnership for Children CEO Mark Jones, National Adoption is day the “best day in the life of a social worker.”
“I work 364 days (a year) to get to today,” he said, over the chatter of children dispersed through the crowd, sitting in the laps or held in the arms of their soon-to-be parents. “This is like social-worker Christmas.”
In the past year — which Jones called “probably the most challenging year we’ve had in foster care in the last 10 years” — 150 children have found permanent homes through his program. During a Nov. 21 presentation to the Flagler County Board of County Commissioners, he pointed to prescription drug abuse as an “epidemic” plaguing local youth, and said Palm Coast is the city with the fastest growing need for foster families in all of his organization’s service area, including Flagler, Volusia and Putnam.
Since National Adoption Day/Month was born in November 2000, he added, more than 1,000 children have been adopted.
“There are about 7 billion souls on this planet,” said Bill Parsons, chief circuit judge, “and the thing that is unique to all of us is the importance of family. … Everything else pales in comparison.”
All adoptive parents were asked to stand. They raised their hands and were sworn in.
The first Flagler family recognized was the Garcia family. After three years in court, Francisca Garcia, maternal grandmother to the three children she adopted, smiled as Judge Raul Zambrano granted her custody.
“It’s been a long journey, with very many visits to court,” Zambrano said, adding that, in all of that time, Garcia never missed a single court date.
“Children don’t always remember what you say to them,” he continued, after signing the adoption papers. “But they’ll always remember how you made them feel.”
In keeping with a tradition he started a while back, he held out three giant lollipops to each of Garcia’s three children — Kyrice, 7, Juliza, 6, Ava, 4. They rushed to him, all smiles, and said, “Thank you.”
Later, he made official the adoption of teenager Marquee, by husband and wife Clive and Marcia Delapahena.
“With a stroke of a pen, you are born in the family,” he said.
Eight other children from Volusia were legally adopted, as well, through many tears and hugs. But before it all, Christie Obrien, a biological, foster and adoptive parent to six, took the podium.
She spoke of her adopted daughter, who had been abused as a baby. As an infant, she couldn’t even roll over, Obrien said. She barely moved or smiled. But after a year of time, coaching and love, one day she began to crawl.
The act may seem small to others, she said, but to her and her husband, it was progress worth celebrating. It meant their love was working.
“We are our children’s biggest cheerleader and voice,” she said. “We want (them) to hear our voices the loudest … We must be the one to say, ‘I believe in you. I know you can do it. I love you.’”
“Your children are precious, and they are valued,” she said. “They are your forever family. Treasure this beautiful gift.”
