Susan Zaghlool and her story

A triumph of foster care
Cornutte, Mark. Cincinnati Enquirer, July 2, 2009. 

At a time college graduates face one of the worst job markets in decades, Susan Zaghlool has options. She's weighing six-figure offers from a number of companies. She's looking at signing bonuses backed up by many zeroes. Part of what makes her a success story is the fact social workers plucked Zaghlool from an abusive home in 1994 at age 12. 

She then lived in a tough Over-the-Rhine group home before striking out on her own as a high school senior. Zaghlool earned her doctorate in pharmacy in May, a lofty achievement for a foster child who was part of a group where just barely 70 percent finish high school and only 13 percent attend college.

Petite and dark with a head full of curly black hair, Zaghlool cracks a high-wattage smile when she talks about where she's come from and where she's going. Her past is seasoned with adults who had faith in her - social workers, teachers and employers. And a mentor who still reaches out to help all these years later. 

A decade after they met, Zaghlool still can count on John Kasak, a retired General Electric engineer, when times get rough. "My father," she called him. "Where would I be without the people who helped me?" she said.

Kasak and other adults formed a support system for her, something that more policymakers here and nationally would like to provide for other foster children. Legislation is pending in Congress - the Foster Care Mentoring Act of 2009 - to pay for programs and forgive $20,000 in federal student loans for college graduates who mentor foster children.

Hamilton County in May started the Higher Education Mentoring Initiative for foster children. The program seeks to reduce crime and prepare foster children for college. The University of Cincinnati, a partner with Hamilton County, plans to offer financial aid to former foster children enrolled there. 

Long walk begins 
Born in Cairo, Egypt, Zaghlool came to the United States as a preschooler when her father, an engineering professor, took a job at the University of California. He moved his family to Ohio a year later to start a computer business. When his only daughter turned 12, he wanted her at home to cook, clean and care for the family's four sons. He hit her and pulled her from beneath her bed by the hair, according to Butler County Children Services records.

"Seven of us lived in a two-bedroom trailer," Zaghlool said. Wearing blue jeans, Zaghlool recently sat on a swing in a park she played in as a child. She came back recently for the first time since she was taken from her family.

"Everybody heard my mom screaming at us in Arabic," she said. "She threw plates at me. I was the bad child." Zaghlool tried to be what she called "normal," but her garage-sale clothing and dark skin made her and her brothers stand out in affluent Lakota schools. She tried smoking marijuana to ease her teen angst.

"I was hopeless at that age," Zaghlool said. "I had the worst family. I didn't think I could ever move up."

Lakota officials filed a report with Butler County Children Services because of her truancy. She was taken from the home briefly. Zaghlool's father promised officials he'd home-school his daughter. She returned to the trailer. He didn't teach her, but she wanted to learn.

One day, she criticized him in a grocery store. He hit her, records show. She hit back and ran away. He called the police. She filed a police report. An investigation revealed the family was in the United States illegally. Her mother and two brothers were sent back to Egypt in 1997. Her father escaped to Canada.

Zaghlool was not deported because she was in temporary custody as a state foster child. The irony of her childhood is not lost on her. The fact she was abused kept her here. "I am truly blessed," said Zaghlool, who became a U.S. citizen last year.

Support system
Zaghlool patched together her own support system through a combination of good fortune and relentless hard work. With no foster care available in Butler County, she ended up in Hearne House, a group home on Elm Street near Cincinnati's Music Hall.

"She believed in education and doing her homework; she read books," home director James Smith said.

Every morning, Zaghlool left before 6:30, walked through Washington Park, east on 13th Street, north on Vine Street and past Kroger. She caught the No. 46 bus to Aiken High School. At ages 15 and 16, she worked at the Vine Street Kroger as a bagger and cashier.

Adrian Oliver then managed the store. "It was a rough place," he said. "She was smart, confident and outgoing. She was not afraid to say hello. She was positive and upbeat." Zaghlool heard about an opening in the pharmacy at the Hyde Park Kroger. She asked Oliver to help. He recommended her. That taste of the pharmacy mapped out her career. She wanted to work in a medical field.

Zaghlool also impressed her Aiken teachers. During her freshman year, consumer sciences teacher Marty Kamrani discovered that beneath Zaghlool's sad shell was a smart girl. "She eventually took everything people offered her and moved forward," the teacher said.

As a student, she was matched with Kasak through GE's partner-in-education program. "She worked the hardest," Kasak said. "She was focused." Sticking with her More important than what Kasak did for her while at Aiken, he stayed with her after she turned 18.

"One of the hardest things (about being a foster child) is when you turn 18 the people who loved you just disappear," she said. "It's like they were paid to love you. As a foster child, you want to be loved ... Once you're out of the system, goodbye, like you never existed. A lot of kids lose hope." 

Kasak, now 78, stuck with Zaghlool. He and his wife, Audrey, invited her to their house for dinner and played board games. "We kind of adopted her," he said.

Kasak taught her how to budget her money. He helped her write her resume and prepare college and scholarship applications. She earned the Darwin T. Turner minority scholarship at UC, which gave her a full ride to the school. He also helped her with the citizenship application. 

Keeping busy 
She majored in chemistry and earned a 3.3 grade point average. She lived in a dorm during the summers after her freshman and sophomore years. She worked as a resident assistant and got involved in student government.

Summers were difficult. "It was so lonely, so I took classes the second year to make it feel more normal," she said.

Earlier in life, Zaghlool experienced enough loneliness to cope with college. She stayed busy. She had lived by herself in an independent living program as an Aiken senior.

Laura Bennett, now a Butler County Children Services night supervisor, started the program and worked with Zaghlool. "Susan will always give credit to people who helped her, but people were drawn to her," Bennett said. "She didn't have the attitude that `the world owes me.' She went for what she wanted. She didn't get angry about her family situation, and she hardly ever said anything about her dad."

As the stakes grew higher, Zaghlool limited e-mail and phone contact with her family. She had nothing to do with her father, although she visited her mother and other family members in Egypt in 2000. "They didn't understand what I was trying to do," 

Zaghlool said of the demands of Lake Erie College's pharmacy school, in Erie, Pa. "They stressed me out, made me feel anxious. You can't afford one bad day or to be distracted."

Still, her life as a former foster child is never far behind her. She said she is stalked by a man who lived with her at the Over-the-Rhine group home.

More angels have appeared. Through the Orphan Foundation of America, based in Washington, Zaghlool won a $20,000 scholarship provided by Barbara and Marshall Grimes, a childless couple from Vienna, Va. That money helped pay for pharmacy school.

"We wanted to help a child who didn't have a family," Barbara Grimes said. "Marshall's dad was a pharmacist." She called Zaghlool to ask about her studies. They traded e-mails and photos. Barbara Grimes sent homemade cookies throughout the year and a Christmas care package.

No sense of entitlement 
"She was always very grateful. She never had the attitude that she was entitled to anything," Barbara Grimes said. The couple finally met her May 31 in Erie at graduation. They weren't the only ones there for the former foster kid from Cincinnati's tough inner city. John and Audrey Kasak were there, too, like they've been many times in the past.

When Zaghlool crashed her car last winter, Kasak told her not to worry and co-signed a car loan for her. She wants to work in Greater Cincinnati. She is $150,000 in debt from her student loans for pharmacy school, but as soon as she gets stable financially, she wants to donate money to Hearne House.

That she was a foster child is never far from her mind. Even at this positive crossroads in her life, Zaghlool said, John and Audrey Kasak are what every orphan needs - someone to be there like a family would. John Kasak shrugged as if to deflect her gratitude. "As long as someone is eager and wants to do something, why not help them?" he asked.

Additional Facts Foster care: 
'Aging out' crisis An estimated 24,000 children per year "age out," that is, turn 18 and are released from the child welfare system in the United States. These former foster children face long odds of leading productive lives.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT 
Within two years of being "emancipated" from the system, one in four former foster children will be in jail. If 48,000 former foster children are within two years of leaving foster care, 12,000 of them will be in or will have spent time in prison.

EDUCATION 
Of those 24,000 cut loose of government care, 70 percent -- or 16,800 -- will have finished high school. Only 13 percent of former foster children attend college, or 2,184. Of those entering college, only 3 percent will graduate, or an even smaller raw number of 66. (Another study shows that 37 percent of former foster children attend some college, but those numbers include people who have grown into middle-age.) 

HOMELESSNESS 
One in five of former foster children will be homeless sometime after age 18. Within the first year, that means the number is 4,800 of 24,000. Females are more likely to move in and out of friends' homes, going from couch to couch. Sources: The Pew Charitable Trusts' "Time for Reform: Aging Our and On Their Own." Casey Family Programs, Orphan Foundation of America, National Foster Care Coalition.