Honors student; gymnastics team captain; Huddle Leader for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes; Student Class Secretary; volunteer extraordinaire; cheer team captain; lifeguard; foster youth…. Phew! Is there anything that high school senior Randi Moore doesn’t do! Randi Moore is a senior at Wall High School in South Dakota maintaining a 3.3 GPA.
She was on the Honor Roll in 2007-2009 and the Principal’s Honor Roll in 2010. She will be graduating this spring and is hoping to study sociology and psychology at college. Her specific career goal is to help foster children by working as either a youth mentor or a counselor.
This summer she will be a counselor in training at a camp educating today’s youth about how to combat racism, bias, and bigotry. Randi is a leader at her school in many ways. An accomplished gymnast, she has been a South Dakota State Gymnastics Placer for the past four years and was recently elected to be her team’s captain. She uses her skills to volunteer, mentor, and coach younger gymnasts.
She was also the captain of the Cheer Team, the vice president of the group Youth to Youth, and the class Secretary her junior year. Randi set a good example for her peers in her role as a Huddle Leader for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Part of being a huddle leader was pledging to stay drug, alcohol, and tobacco-free and also following FCA’s Sexual Purity Policy.
Randi is dedicated to helping other foster youth because she knows life is easier if you have a support system by your side and someone you can turn to with problems. She writes, “I had a few adults that helped me through foster care. Without their guidance and support, my experience of foster care would have been harder. “
Randi has been in foster care for the past fourteen years, beginning when she was three. Because she entered care so young, she had a lot of questions about her biological family. She writes; “I didn’t know a lot about myself like my first years of life, who my family was, and where I came from. It’s hard to find yourself when you don t have anyone to turn to with questions like these.”
She is grateful that she had the opportunity to meet her biological mom when she was seventeen. Despite the various challenges, Randi reflects positively on her experiences. She knows it’s easy for children in foster care to become angry and bitter, but she chose not to allow herself to go down that path.
“I chose to push myself to be better than my parents and not make the same choices they made. I have learned from their mistakes. I have committed myself to a drug and alcohol- free life. I have overcome the problems life has given me,” says Randi. “Now, I thank them for putting me up for foster care, because without being put in the wonderful family I have today I wouldn’t have learned what love is and what being thankful means.”
Randi’s family is taking the necessary steps to adopt her. In her spare time she likes to watch movies, read, listen to music, go on a bike ride, run, work out, and spend time outdoors. Her favorite thing, though, is spending time her family and friends.
