A young girl in Danville, Alabama, celebrated her adoption at the end of January, and her entire second grade class came to the memorable ceremony.
Jasmine Brown had a long road to finding her forever family, going through placements in seven different homes throughout her three years in foster care. When the day for her adoption finally came, she invited her whole class to join her. The children all wore matching shirts and wore signs saying, “Happy Jasmine Day.”
“All of the kids were so excited that she’s found her forever home,” Jasmine’s teacher, Amanda Holland, told ABC News.
“It was a very special time. I think it was great for those kids to get to witness that and see how that works. You hear about adoption but if you’ve never been a part of one, you really don’t know the legality part of it and how it all goes down. So I think that was a great experience for them to be able to be a part of that,” said principal Tara Morrow.
Jasmine’s new parents, Melanie and Anthony Brown, are no strangers to welcoming children into their home, having fostered 37 children since 2015. Melanie said that it was a sign from God that Jasmine became eligible for adoption while she was under their care.
“We had to pray about it, think about it, and we realized it was just God’s plan that had unfolded right before us,” Melanie said. “So that’s when we decided that we would keep her.”
Melanie told Good Morning America that she thought the support of her classmates would be especially important to Jasmine on her big day. “I am adopted myself and I remember schoolkids [being] mean — ‘Oh you’re that unwanted little adopted kid.’ And so, I just told my husband Anthony, I said, ‘It would be so neat, since Jasmine has been in the same school with these kids — kindergarten, first grade, second grade — if they could come’ and he said, ‘Oh, yeah, that would be neat.’ Well, I mentioned it to the teacher and she ran with it,” Melanie explained.
“To have the class there to be there and support her on that day, it was just very exciting,” Melanie said.
“They were there for me, and they loved me and they cared for me,” added Jasmine.
Melanie said that Jasmine was excited that she no longer has to move around, and she has a family that’s hers. “When we sat her down and asked her, did she know what it meant to be adopted, she said, ‘It means I never have to leave this house.”
