A selfless mum of 16 has welcomed over 100 foster children into her home and even adopted 13 kids more.
Supermum Kelly Green lives in Summerville, South Carolina, US, with her family of 18, including her husband Tim.
The one big family is made up of their three biological children, Morgan, Braylon and Slayton and their 13 adopted children – McKinley, Lucas, Charlie, Ryli, David, Kenneth, Narly, Nevaeh, Emma, Apple, Autumn, Kayla and Amber.
After moving towns and getting involved in the sports community with her children, Kelly realised just how many kids there are without parents and decided she wanted to get into fostering.
Since expanding her family, Kelly compares her life to being the real-life version of Cheaper by the Dozen movie, and she said she gets through a whopping 35 loads of laundry a week!
She even had a cow butchered to feed the family for over a year, explaining that it’s a cost-effective way to feed her large brood – having spent $1,200 on their last cow which took around 2 years for them to get through!
Kelly said: “I never went into fostering to get into adopting, but it seems God had other plans for us, and we became a licensed adoption home.
“In 2019, we had our first foster child, and within the first week, we had eight foster children because we had the goal of helping siblings.
“Since then, we have had over 100 foster children in our home.
“The children we have adopted were unable to go home, and they wanted to stay with us too. So we are one big family now. It was never our plan, but it feels like we are all exactly where we are meant to be.”
Since they first began fostering, Kelly moved into a 4,000 sq ft home, where everything is within walking distance and she uses golf buggies to get around.
The family only spends around $10 a week on gas for the buggies and even has a nine-seater buggy that they can get the kids to school on and go to the stores.
However, they do still have a 15- 15-passenger van and some of their kids can drive which Kelly says is a big help.
Kelly added: “I think it’s hard to imagine what having 16 kids is like for people who just have one or two children, but I am used to it now. It’s just a normal life but everything is in a larger capacity.
Kelly explains how the family has a regimented structure from Monday to Friday, but on the weekend, there is a more relaxed routine where the kids can go to bed and wake up whenever they like.
The supermum admits to not being much of a chore person and doesn’t set specific tasks for the kids, but all hands are on deck for their nightly round-up and tidy.
Kelly said: “We all come together and do a reset for the following day.
“It means that everyone is working together, there’s no bickering over who does what, and no one is singled out. It just seems to work for us.
As well, Kelly also explains how the meal plan and all the children sit down on a Sunday and write the menu for the following week so everyone is happy.
Kelly added: “With a minimum of 18 people in the house at all times, it’s fair to say there’s always laundry to get through.”
While Kelly’s teen kids do most of their laundry themselves, she says there is a minimum of two loads of towels alone to be washed each day.
“There’s a minimum of five loads of washing getting done each day in our house – 35 loads per week.
“It sounds like a lot, but it’s just our routine now.”
“I never imagined I would be part of such a big family or have so many children. Our kids don’t remember what it was like before we started fostering and adopting, and I feel the same.
“I don’t know what my purpose was before having all my kids. I lived a selfish life before them all. I’d take myself to get my nails done, and hair done, and we’d go on date nights and go on trips freely.
“I was just going through the motions before, but now I have so much to laugh about, there’s never a dull moment, and all the kids will have so many great stories about their siblings when they’re older.
“We wouldn’t change our life for the world.”
It is estimated there are around 369,000 children in the US child welfare system and out of the 100,000 to 150,000 children adopted each year, only 50,000 are from foster care.
In the care system, it is common for siblings to be split up, with around 53% to 80% of children separated from one or more of their siblings in care.
Kelly made it her mission to keep as many siblings in the foster system together and opened her heart and home to them.
She is a Mum in a million!