Teen's adoption plea goes viral

(UPI) -- Standing up at the pulpit in church for Davion Navar Henry Only was a prayer of a different order.

Fifteen-year-old Davion is an orphan who has spent his whole life bouncing between foster homes around St. Petersburg, Fla. He recently learned his biological mother, who gave birth to him in prison, had died, and it spurred him to make a plea to the community: Please adopt me.

"I know God hasn't given up on me," he told the gathered congregants at St. Mark Missionary Baptist Church last month. "So I'm not giving up, either."

Davion's story, which came to the public's attention in a heart-wrenching October 7 piece in the Tampa Bay Times, has quickly gone viral, and with each share and retelling, his chances of finding a new, permanent home improve.

And his chances aren't good. Of the 400,000 children in foster care, a vast majority of whom are black and Hispanic, only 13 percent -- 52,000 -- were adopted.

When the Times published his story, two families had contacted Eckerd Community Alternatives about Davion, but neither had moved forward with adoption.

Since then, the Florida Department of Children and Families said it has received hundreds of calls about Davion.

While he'd always wanted a real home, the one he knew was Colton Manor, where he lived with 11 other troubled teen boys. Cameras recorded their every move; he had to ask permission to use the bathroom. He wants to play football, and someone who can drive him to practice.

It was only in June that Davion began his last-ditch quest for adoption.

His mother, La-Dwina Ilene "Big Dust" McCloud, 55, died June 5, 2013, just weeks before he sat down at a library computer to search for her name for the first time. Before that, she's spent years in prison for petty theft and cocaine conviction.

The knowledge -- her death -- changed him. The teen boy who had thrown chairs and let his grades plummet decided he wanted to make himself better.

"He decided he wanted to control his behavior and show everyone who he could be," said his caseworker, Connie Going.

This summer, he dropped 40 pounds and his anger. His grades, conversely, shot up: all As, except in geometry.

"I'll take anyone," Davion said. "Old or young, dad or mom, black, white, purple. I don't care. And I would be really appreciative. The best I could be."

"I know they're out there," he told Going. "Maybe if someone hears my story..."

And that hope -- faith, really -- is what brought him to the pulpit at St. Mark's.

Dressed in a too-big donated suit, a zip-up white tie around his neck, Davion stood up before a congregation of more than 300.

"My name is Davion and I've been in foster care since I was born..."