By adopting children into their homes, foster parents do more than just provide wayward boys and girls with a roof over their heads.

They give these children a solid foundation of morals and life lessons that will shape the rest of their lives, said Cass County Prosecutor Victor Fitz.

“You are taking clay, and building it into a solid rock,” Fitz said. “That is a rock that will serve that child well, wherever they live or wherever they are in life.”

The prosecutor was one of many county officials who shared the importance that the adoption process has for local foster children inside a packed courtroom Tuesday afternoon at the Cass County Law and Courts Building.

The county celebrated its 14th annual Adoption Day that day, as one of many jurisdictions throughout Michigan hosting ceremonies for foster families taking in new children.

Probate Judge Susan Dobrich presided over the adoption of nine Cass County children that afternoon who were officially united with their new forever families.

“Adoption is very much like a marriage,” Dobrich said. “It is a promise made, a promise heard and, today, a promise witnessed.”

There are around 12,600 children in Michigan who are currently in the state foster care system, 2,000 of whom, have the goal of adoption, Dobrich said. In Cass County, around 50 children are adopted into new homes each year.

Around 600 local foster children have been formally adopted through one of the Adoption Day ceremonies since Dobrich and other community leaders brought the event to Cass County nearly 15 years ago, Dobrich said.

Among those speaking during Tuesday’s ceremony was State Sen. John Proos, who said that events such as Adoption Day celebrate something that lies at the heart of humanity: the family.

“Our strongest communities are those that recognize family as the basis, as the beginning,” Proos said. “It is from family that we learn the most important things in life. We learn what forgiveness looks like, and how it feels. We learn what honesty means, and how it is so important to trust. We learn what trust is, and how trust makes us strong within walls of our family, so that we model that same thing in the community.”