Glenn Koster is a double product of the adoption/ foster care system. He was adopted at age 6, after being removed from the home of an abusive parent in 1962, and again at 10, following another bad experience.

Koster wants better lives for children in the system today.

To that end, the 60-something pastor from South Hutchinson arrived in Ellsworth Monday night after leaving Rice County about 7:30 a.m. and walking along the highways that connect the two places. These were counties six and seven on Koster’s mission to raise awareness and support for adoption and the foster care system in Kansas. He hopes to have walked to the state’s 105 counties by October 2022.

“Anything I can do. These kids need to be loved,” Koster said in a telephone interview about the time he reached Kansas Highway 4.

He cannot be a foster parent, based on a history of alcoholism and spousal abuse. Koster, who is open about his past, said he followed the example of his birth father until 1989, when he stopped drinking and became violent free.

But as important as adoption and being a foster parent are, there are other ways to support the hundreds of children and families in need of help, he said.

Among them: mentor a child or a family on the skills of being a parent, volunteer to take a child over a weekend to give the parents a break, offer to take a child to appointments to ease the strain on the state’s social workers.

Information: www.adoptkskids.org. The site is a project of the Kansas Department of Children and Families.