Five Foster Siblings Officially Become Part Of Collins Family

SNOW HILL – Applause erupted amid a sea of smiling faces at the Worcester County courthouse Thursday as a Mardela Springs couple adopted five siblings.

In what was Judge Peggy Kent’s first adoption since being sworn in as a Worcester County Circuit Court judge, Mardela Springs residents Steve and Tina Collins officially welcomed the five children they’ve fostered for the past year into their already large family. When they initially found out that the three brothers of the two little girls they were fostering needed a place to go, they wasted no time in offering up their home.

“How do you choose?” Tina Collins said. “We fell in love with the girls. We felt it was important to keep them all together.”

Steve and Tina Collins, who raised three biological children, always planned to become foster parents when their kids reached adulthood.

“Mainly just because of the stories you hear,” Tina Collins said. “There are so many children in need.”

And so when their youngest child was 18, they went through Worcester County’s certification program to become foster parents. They went on to adopt the first two children they fostered, a brother and sister, before agreeing to foster two more girls early last year. It wasn’t long before the Collins were advised that the girls were part of a group of five siblings. In June of last year, the boys rejoined their sisters in the Collins home.“That’s the amazing part of this story,” said Roberta Baldwin, director of the Worcester County Department of Social Services. “There was a family willing to open their home to all five. There aren’t many families with the ability to do that. It just shows they put the needs of the children first.”

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