Mike MacCoy was taken from an alcoholic home at the age of ten and spent the next five years in a variety of Ontario foster homes.

With just a slight mist in his eye, MacCoy recalled his best experience during those five-years, time spent with Mrs. Johnston and Mrs. Hogan.

His worst experience? "Leaving home," he was quick to answer. "Moving from one place to another and never knowing what to expect next."

His behavior didn't help either. "I wasn't the best kid in the world," he admits. Stealing and break-ins led him to a number of different foster homes and finally a year in a Training School.

He lit out on his own at fifteen.

After spending time working in the bush, MacCoy met a guy who owned transport trucks.

"Dallas took me under his wing for a year and taught me a lot," MacCoy recalled - "things like honesty, how to develop a good work ethic and how to treat people like I wanted to be treated. I worked for him for the next five years."

After another ten years of driving trucks, Mike, his wife and three kids bought an old bus, piled all they owned inside and drove to Nanaimo where Mike and a friend opened a car lot.

"Five years after that, we felt it was time to give back to Mrs. Johnston and Mrs. Hogan," MacCoy recalled.

He and his wife, Elizabeth, started by offering a safe haven to a few friends of their kids and the next thing they knew, they were foster parents.

They got into the Antique business (Old Tyme Antiques on Nicol Street) as an outlet, a place to relax and find another focus.

When I asked about his education, MacCoy answered regretfully. "I don't have any - well, maybe Grade four."

It turns out that not only did he move from home to home and school to school during his childhood but he learned later in life that he was also dyslexic. Talk about overcoming challenges!

MacCoy would say very little about his role as a foster parent but it's obviously a demanding and stressful job. Even so, he still recommends it.

"There are a lot of rewards," he enthused. "Many of these kids have been badly abused. They don't trust anyone and I can't blame them.

"But if you show them trust, and let them know you are going to stick with them and not send them packing to another home, it usually works out."

Although Frank Garnish and other staff at Five Acres Alternative School nominated both Mike and his wife, Elizabeth, for a Lieutenant Governor's Award, MacCoy says Elizabeth is twice what he is.

"She's very mellow, never raises her voice, takes all the negative stuff kids give her and then gives it back five times over in love and caring," he enthused.

One young fellow who stayed with them for nine years was given up for adoption at the age of two because his parents thought he would have a better life with his adoptive parents but it didn't turn our that way. Eight years later, at the age of ten, he turned up on the MacCoy doorstep.

"You couldn't even give this kid the slightest hug," Mike recalled, " or he'd go right off his nut."

Three years ago, at the age of 19, this same young fellow went out left the MacCoy home.

He's got a good job, his own apartment and, although he's busy taking evening courses at Malaspina, he still finds time to drop in almost everyday to visit the MacCoys.

He plans on becoming a social worker or a psychologist.

"That's the reward," Mike smiled.