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Tristan Jacobson
KY3 Screnshot
When Tristan Jacobson was just five, his mother left him on the stoop of a Springfield, Missouri homeless shelter in 17-degree weather and went back to her addiction.
A year later, Donnie Davis and her husband Jimmy, one-time friends of the boy’s mother, took Tristan in where he has stayed ever since. Now, 9, the family is looking to formally adopt Tristan, which was going to cost upwards of $5,000.
The family started a YouGiving page in hopes that donations may help offset the cost.
Tristan, wanting to do all he could to help, opened a lemonade stand to help raise money for his adoption and in a weekend as word spread, Tristan raised more than $7,000.
“There’s not enough words to say ‘thank you’ to everyone who has shown support or given us donations,” Davis told the Springfield News-Leader. “Everyone has made this possible. We will make sure this child will forever be ours.”
His parents told the newspaper that any extra money would go towards Tristan’s education.
Tristan’s adoptive mom said that when Tristan was four she began noticing a difference.
“Shortly before he turned 4, I could notice a huge difference in his physical appearance, clothes being dirty and not fitting and in her activity in both of her boys life,” Davis explained on their YouGiving page. “For the next year, it got worse and worse. Long story short, we found out that she had been doing drugs and had been prostituting to get money for drugs.”
Davis went on to describe the horrible conditions Tristan was subjected to while with his birth mother.
“She would take him with her when she would meet men for sex, she would allow her multiple boyfriends to beat on him, she would leave him alone in her apartment, he was always in his little brothers clothes, they hadn’t been washed, he witnessed sexual acts between her and other woman [sic] and men, she wrote.
“He was locked in a dark room at night and had to listen to her being beat by the multiple boyfriends. This is just a small listing of all of the abuse that he went thru [sic].’
According to the newspaper, Tristan set up the stand on Friday afternoon, offering cold glasses of lemonade for $1 each. He raised some $7,100 in donations by Saturday with his lemonade stand by Saturday.
“It means everything. He is absolutely our son. He is in our hearts, Davis said.
“This is more for reassurance for him, knowing that he has his forever family and he has our name.”
Read more at the Springfield News-Leader.
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