This story will capture your heart…Each year, between Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, SOS Children’s Villages sponsors an “Other Mother Contest.”  Basically, they collect stories where “other mothers” – women who are not the biological parent but nonetheless have a profound impact on a child’s life – are honored.  Other Mothers are those who fill the gap – grandparents, uncles and aunts, friends, foster parents, or others who mother a child when biological parents cannot.

The nominees range from a foster mother who took in not one but EIGHT kids (!) to a Boys & Girls Club Supervisor who took mentoring youth to a new level; to a Sunday school teacher who comforted a rape victim.  Some of the quotes from nominees include…

“Abandoned by my mother by 14, I raised my sister and had learned from age 6 to take care of myself.”  This nominee explains being “rescued” from being alone shivering under an electric blanket to being taken in and fed soup by her “other mother.”

And from another…”There were times that my mother drank too much and ended up on the floor. Who did I call?  (Aunt) Bobbie. She would rush over to my home and comfort me.”

In total, 10 finalists were announced by SOS Children’s Villages and its panel of celebrity judges.

SOS Children’s Villages has more than 5,000 SOS mothers across the world who are raising orphaned and abandoned children.

Voting ends June 12, 2011.

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