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George Palombo

By Kelly Burgess

Each month, iParenting.com spotlights a father who inspires and moves us, who embodies the qualities that we all admire in a person, a man and a father. Above all, the Dad of the Month is dedicated to his children. Rich or poor, famous or not, he shines as an example of what fathering is all about.

George Palombo has a simple philosophy: What makes you successful is how you invest in other people's lives. He tells it to his own children, to the children he mentors and to the adults he teaches to mentor. He also lives it every day in his work and in his life.

Palombo, 39, of Ambridge, Pa., works for the Beaver County Sheriff's Department as their community outreach officer. It's a job he's held since 1993 when, while working as a deputy, he was approached by his boss and asked if he'd be interested in starting a DARE program in the local school district. He was and he did. Since then, he's expanded the program to include a summer camp and it's become a model for other departments. In 2001, he was named a Pennsylvania Police Officer of the Year for his community work.

That's the happy beginning and the happy end. Here's what happened in between.

Located in the Appalachian Mountains, Western Pennsylvania is a landscape of steep, narrow roads along breathtaking vistas. On a beautiful September day in 1997, Palombo was driving home from work up a long, winding road, enjoying the warmth of Indian summer and the beauty of the thickly-treed hills that had just donned their fall colors. He says that he saw, almost in slow motion, the 30-ton truck coming around the bend on two wheels and turning over into his lane, onto his car. His last thought was, "Well, I'm dead."

Not only was he still alive after the crash, Palombo was conscious for the hour and 20 minutes it took for rescue workers to extricate him from the car. As they loaded him into the Life Flight helicopter, he thought to himself, "Wow, I'll have a great view of the foliage from here."

Palombo didn't get to see the view that day. His legs were smashed, he'd broken several ribs and lost two fingers on his left hand. He spent the next eight days in the trauma unit, which he hated. Much too early, they sent him home where his wife, Susan, already overwhelmed with two special needs boys and an infant daughter, got a full-time patient as well.

They survived, their marriage survived and Palombo went back to work one year and one day after the accident that should have killed him. That same day he was being interviewed by a local news channel when his pager went off in the middle of the program. It was his wife.

"She asked me if I was sitting down, because CYF [Children's Youth and Families Services] had just called," Palombo says. "They had taken custody of our sons' younger siblings on an emergency order, and wanted to know if we would take them. They were living with us within a week."

Susan and George had talked about adoption before they even married. They both had a very real sense that there were children in the world who needed homes, and that they could truly love these children. Palombo already had a son, Frank, from a previous marriage, so he had a pretty good idea of what it meant to raise a child.

After the Palombos married and began to actively pursue adoption, they decided that they wouldn't mind a special needs child, as long as the needs were reasonably manageable, so they went through the training required for that subset of adoptive parents.

Their first attempt at adoption ended sadly. They had been chosen from more than 100 couples by a girl who was giving her baby up for adoption. The boy, Patrick, died of a rare blood disorder just a few days after his birth.

Almost exactly nine months later they got a call from CYF, which is responsible for foster children and for finding homes for children who have been taken from their parents permanently. CYF had two boys, brothers, ages 3 and 5, and were desperately looking for a stable home for them. Would the Palombos be interested? They were, and ended up adopting Richard and Willie. The boys were a handful, having come from a home where there was literally no parenting whatsoever. Because they had no real sense of right from wrong, they had to be monitored constantly.

The week after the adoption was finalized, Susan discovered she was pregnant. Lexi was born in July of 1997, George had his accident in September and a year later they were being asked to adopt Richard and Willie's younger siblings, Calvin and Randy, who were the same ages the older boys had been, 3 and 5, when they were adopted. But whereas Richard and Willie had been extremely hyperactive with severe learning issues, Calvin and Randy were positively feral.

"Nothing could have prepared us for those two," Palombo says. "They were whirlwinds; they bit, they spat, they had no recognizable language or social skills. It's almost impossible to even list every problem that needed to be addressed. But you have to understand that all four boys came from a situation that is almost unimaginable to most people. They are four of 23 or 24 siblings that were simply born and then left to be. The miracle is that they even survived."

It's been nine years since the first set of adoptions, eight years since Lexi's birth and the accident and seven years since the second set of adoptions. The intervening years have not been easy, as the boys still struggle with profound emotional, learning and social issues. The Palombos' marriage has been tested, probably their sanity at times as well. Through it all, they've managed to hold it all together and keep family first. One thing that helps is that, occasionally, the younger boys' former foster parent will take all four boys for a few days or a weekend and give the rest of the family a little vacation.

Still, they wouldn't go back, even though it's probably more difficult for Susan than for anyone. For her, the moniker "full-time mother" is more literal than most parents can imagine. But they celebrate victories and vow to try harder when things aren't going well. As for Lexi, Palombo notes that she is "the queen bee" and runs the family like any adored little sister.

"It's been an incredible journey with these guys, but we don't allow them, or ourselves, any excuses," Palombo says. "We tell them they may not be rocket scientists, but we want them to do whatever they can with everything they're worth, be the best they can be and invest in other people's lives. That's all that matters."

Palombo puts his time where his mouth is. Seeing, as he does, the sheer volume of children who make bad choices, he realized that there is a real need to help teachers and parents develop better skills in dealing with young people. This led to the American Center for Character and Cultural Education (ACCE), which he established with a local businessman. The mission is to help parents and teachers understand and react to the cultural influences on our children today.

"I wanted to develop a program that reached kids where they are and would help them develop critical thinking skills with pop culture as a meeting ground," Palombo says. "Most parents have no idea how much influence, much of it negative, that this culture has and I think it's important for them [adults] to develop skills to teach children to challenge them on the logic of what they're watching and listening to."

He also continues to do DARE and runs the summer camp that he and a partner started back in 1996 for children going from fifth to sixth grade. Sponsored by DARE, its mission is character building, but it's so much fun the kids don't realize that it's doing them good. In addition to hiking, canoeing and other traditional summer camp activities, Palombo arranges to bring in noted athletes as well as friends of his in other areas of community service, such as Life Flight pilots. Palombo jokes that, someday, he may get that ride to see the foliage after all.