Oct 22, 2008 8:30 pm US/Mountain
Adopted Girls Pay It Forward to Chinese Orphans
Written by CBS4 special projects producer Libby Smith
The idea behind CBS4's Pay it Forward Colorado project is to give $1,000 to a Coloradan (or group of Coloradans) who will use the money to change someone else's life. Submit your ideas
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. Below lies CBS4's Oct. 16 report. DENVER, Colo. (CBS4) - In a Denver parochial school, 12-year-old Emily Toltz read aloud, since coming to Colorado from China she has beautifully mastered English. In a classroom down the hall, 8-year-old Lucy Toltz presented a project to her classmates talking first about her life in China, and then her life in Colorado.
"I like my life and my family," Emily Toltz told CBS4.
Her family was created through adoption. Katie Toltz adopted both Emily and Lucy from an orphanage in China. The girls were just babies when they were adopted, but they have a pile of keepsakes that remind them of where they came from.
"I was 8 months and I was 8 pounds; and these were my socks, they didn't match at all. This was the shirt that I came in. I came in these like overall-type things and they didn't have backs because when I was little, when I had to go to the bathroom, they just didn't have backs," Emily explained.
Emily and Lucy rely on the stories they've heard from their mother to fill in the pieces of their early infancy. It's their lives in Colorado that they're proud of and have shaped them.
"If I would have stayed in China, I would not have had my sister … I wouldn't have a good family," Lucy said.
The girls are incredibly resilient. They were abandoned at birth in China and this summer their adoptive mom, Katie, died suddenly of complications from Lupus. Emily and Lucy now live with their grandmother and are still incredibly grateful for the life their mother has given them.
"We have a grandma, we have our family. We'll still have the same values and goals in life as if she's still here," Emily explained.
Now the sisters want to pay it forward to other Chinese babies as a way to honor their late mother. They want to make life better by sending $1,000 to a Chinese orphanage in Beijing.
"I'd like to give them food they can eat, not just milk," Lucy said.
Their mother is still alive in the hearts of the little girls and they're determined to make her proud everyday.
"She'll be thinking, 'Wow, my girls have grown up to be so caring to other people,'" Emily added.
At a time when the smart and poised young girls are adjusting to a life without their beloved mother, they can't help but think about all the children who haven't had the chances they've had.
(© MMX CBS Television Stations, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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