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Stacy Schumaker Maciuk, Advocate for Foster Care Children, is being honored for making local and state agencies aware of the special needs and challenges of foster care children. She is able to speak on this subject from a special perspective--she became a foster care child at 2 and spent 17 years dealing with the bureaucracy of the foster care system. In spite of the odds against her, she graduated high school--after attending 10 different elementary and secondary schools—and graduated from Belmont University with a degree in Social Work. She was selected to give the college’s Commencement speech. In her speech she stated, “What I have learned is that you have to create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life, because you become what you believe.” While at Belmont University she led a task force to develop a system for recruiting, identifying, and meeting the needs of foster care students. The college president considered her recommendations and worked with Mrs. Schumaker Maciuk and a faculty committee to convince the college to provide housing for foster care youth during school breaks and raise scholarship money from outside donors for foster care youth. In 2003, as part of the Tennessee Youth Advisory Council, she organized a suitcase collection drive to provide foster children with a place to pack their clothes and possessions other than a garbage bag. In both houses of the Tennessee General Assembly, Mrs. Schumaker Maciuk fought for college tuition waivers for foster care youth who have aged out of the foster care system they grew up in. Mrs. Schumaker Maciuk completed graduate school and is now working in the Offices of Former Vice President Al Gore and Mrs. Tipper Gore.
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