'If You See a Need, You Fill It

STILL IN THEIR 20s, TASIA AND DREW TAYLOR OPENED THEIR HOME-AND HEARTS TO BECOME PARENTS TO TEENS 

- EILEEN FINAN , ABBY ROEDEL

When Tasia and Drew Taylor first shared the news in April 2022 that they were taking in a 12-year-old foster daughter, nearly everyone told them it was a bad idea. After all, the Dardanelle, Ark., couple had been married for less than two years and they weren't much past their teenage years themselves. "We weren't trying to do something noble and we didn't feel we were ready for it," says Drew, now 25, of their unexpected dive into parenthood. "But we saw something that needed to happen, and we made it happen."

Their journey to becoming a family began when Tasia, now 23, first met Rory, a student at the private school where she was teaching. Rory had bounced around the foster care system from the age of 3 until she was adopted at 5. But after more than seven years, Rory's adoptive parents decided to return her to foster care. "They told the school, but they hadn't told Rory," says Tasia. "They didn't want her to know until it was time. When I first heard, it made me so sick I threw up in the bathroom at school."