COUNTYWIDE : 2 Ex-Foster Children to Be Honored Today

Two former foster children from Orange County will be honored today for overcoming the trauma of childhood abuse and neglect to lead successful lives.

Southern Area Fostercare Effort, or SAFE, will hand out awards to five young people from Southern California in recognition of their achievements despite seemingly insurmountable odds.

Patti Anaya, 25, of Santa Ana was named the winner of the 1994 Foster Our Future Award.

Anaya, a mother of two, was raised in extreme poverty, as the daughter of an abusive stepfather and a drug-addicted mother who eventually overdosed.

At 15, she became pregnant. She gave birth to a frail, four-pound infant and moved in with her boyfriend’s parents, who became her foster parents. While caring for the fragile infant, Anaya graduated from high school.

Four years later, she had a second child. Still, she continued her studies, ultimately becoming a medical assistant in a physician’s office. She says she has never been unemployed nor received welfare to support her children.

“I have always wanted to raise my children in a stable home environment and have control over what happens in my home, and this award proves that I have done that,” Anaya said.

Michael McKenzie, 22, of San Clemente will receive the fourth annual William G. Steiner Award. The award was established by the Orange County supervisor to recognize outstanding achievements of former foster children.

McKenzie, a student at Saddleback College, also had a troubled childhood. For the first 14 years of his life, he says, he was shuttled back and forth between foster homes and his mother, who had a severe drinking problem.

He lived in shabby motel rooms and dank warehouses. At times, he said, his only meals were raw spaghetti. When he was 14, his mother died.

By then, McKenzie, a junior in high school, suffered from depression and was facing expulsion from school.

He credits his foster father, Peter McKenzie, now his legal guardian, with helping him turn his life around.

McKenzie will miss the awards ceremony because he will be deep in the mountains working at a camp for underprivileged boys that he once attended as a youth.