CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A Charlotte family brought together by barely surviving heartbreak is now thriving, and they said it's, in part, thanks to their hometown.
The Moffitt family moved to Charlotte in 2023. When they first met WCNC Charlotte, all five of their kids ran out of their home with big hugs and grins.
"I'm very proud of the joy and smiles, and the love they extend to those around them," Kayla Moffitt said.
Her husband Jared echoed that sentiment.
"It is a great mystery," he said. "They have just a formidable spirit about them. It exceeded explanation. They're just joyful and happy, and I don't just say that. Our kids are happy kids, and it doesn't quite make sense. They have gone through hell, but man, you wouldn't know it."
The five siblings spent three years apart in different foster care homes after Social Services took them from their biological mother. The oldest of the group, Lashay, remembers how things seemed to only get worse before Social Services stepped in.
"When it started getting rough is when my baby brother died," she said. "I was 7 at the time, and all I remember was me trying to do CPR on him.
Now 17, Lashay looks back on that as the turning point in their lives.
"That's when I started becoming a parent for them," she said. "I was 7 years old making bottles. We didn't have baby milk. I mixed it with water."
Still, she said Social Services didn't take action until a few years later when another sibling almost died.
"When my 7-year-old sister got into crystal meth, she got crystal meth in her system, and we had to go to the hospital," Lashay said.
It wasn't long before the four sisters and brother would be pulled away, and Lashay faced a new trauma from the family who took them in.
"When we first went into foster care, we were in a home all together for a year-and-a-half, and I was still a parent to my siblings," she remembered. "I was sexually abused by their son when I was 12."
After that, the five kids were sent to different homes.
"It was so hard for me," Lashay said. "I was all they knew. Our biological mom wasn't around, so I was their mom. I thought I lost my children."
It was several years before they were reunited. Lashay said she never lost hope and kept telling herself she'd see them again someday.
"It's OK; it's going to be OK; I promise one day we'll be together," Lashay said. "I promised, and now we're all together."
Coming together as a family
Kayla and Jared Moffitt adopted all five kids four years ago, and the siblings now call them Mom and Dad.
"It's a joy hearing them fight upstairs because they have the opportunity to," Kayla Moffitt said. "They're no reintroducing themselves to each other. They're waking up beside each other, and we don't take that for granted. There isn't a rulebook or handbook for this type of family. It's so unique, something we take a day at a time."
Jared and Kayla had their own unique journey in forming this family. They've known each other since middle school. Jared remembers his now-wife was a cheerleader, and he was in the marching band.
"I wrote him a note in seventh grade and asked if he liked me, and to circle yes or no," Kayla said.
The couple, who grew up in what they described as a one-stoplight town in Arkansas, married in 2011. They worked as youth pastors for nearly a decade until they decided to consider fostering and adoption. Kayla initially imagined bringing in one or two children into their home.
"Our social worker, the day that she left our home, she said 'Your house can fit up to five,' and we were like, 'That's nice, but no thank you,'" Kayla Moffitt said. "Two seemed like a lot."
"It's amazing, and it's a blessing," Lashay said. "I was like, 'You don't have to adopt me if you don't want to. Most people don't like to adopt teenagers. You can just adopt my four younger siblings, that's all I care about. And then my mom seriously told me she wanted to adopt me."
The couple knew the kids had been through a lot.
"The trauma they've endured, it doesn't just go away, it manifests in unique ways every single day," Jared said. "From our youngest, who's 6 now, and our oldest, who's 17, that trauma from their past life shows up, and when it shows up, we're their parents. It's our job to take care of them."
Part of that trauma, what they were dealing with in their town, is why they chose to move to Charlotte 10 months ago.
"We were in a very white town in Arkansas," Kayla said. "Racism exists, and we dealt with a whole lot of ignorance, so we spent time traveling, finding a new place to call home where they could be around Black and brown skin and racial mirrors, and teachers, doctors and hairstylists and friends that looked like them. In Arkansas, they would go days without seeing another person of color, and we had to do right by them."
Kayla said Charlotte has truly become the family's home.
"You hear that kids are resilient; that's very true for ours," she said. "We have five of the most joyful babies I've ever met, I don't know how you can go through what they went through and still smile, but they do."
"I love my family; I love my kids," Jared added. "They are so very special to me, and though they are not biologically mine, I still feel the same sense of responsibility, love and care for them as a father to provide for them and be what I know a father should be. I have every intention of being that for each of them."
The couple admits there are times they're just winging it.
"Just like they didn't know how to be together, live in a house, we didn't know how to be parents and becoming parents to five overnight proved to be challenging," Kayla said. "But we constantly give grace, have conversations about all the hard things, the scary things, cheer each other on and forgive. Every day is a new day."
Lashay remains thankful for the family she has now.
"I would describe this family as a blessing," she said. "Some days it's hard, and there are really happy times."
"We are a family!" Kayla said. "It took us a long time to get here, but we are family."
The Moffits are fierce advocates for foster care and work to spread the word about the need in Charlotte and across the country.
There are currently more than 12,000 children in foster care in North Carolina, according to recent data. Here in Mecklenburg County, you must be 21 or older to foster children and have lived in the county for at least six months. Click here to learn more about adoption and foster care in Mecklenburg County.
There's also CFK, a local nonprofit that works with foster care families, helping them get trained and offering support to new families.
Contact Michelle Boudin at mboudin@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, X and Instagram.
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