Single Father Adopts 5 Siblings To Guarantee They Stay A Family

A 48-year-old single father from New York who had fostered over 30 kids in the past, has now adopted five siblings so that they do not get separated.

Lamont Thomas, who works as a caterer, initially decided to foster five siblings ⁠— Zendaya, Jamel, Nakia, Major and Macaela — under the age of six, upon finding out that they would be split up. Last month, he adopted all five siblings to ensure that they stayed together as a family.

"I had to help them. They deserved to be raised together," CBS News quoted him saying.

Thomas was a divorced father of two kids when he welcomed Michael Perez as his first foster child in 2001.

"[Perez] was a good young man and I just hated to see him in the system," he said. He later adopted Perez, who now works as a nurse.

"I don’t believe that I would be the same person that I am today without the morals that he instilled in me, the extended family that I have now," Perez said.

Thomas started out by helping out his friends who lost a child to the foster system, he told Good Morning America. Since becoming a certified foster parent, he took in more children over the next 15 years in Buffalo, New York, and even adopted five of the foster kids, including Perez.

"Lamont never turned [a child] away," Perez told GMA. "They either aged out or went back home to their own families."

Thomas now has 10 adopted children and two biological children.