Fostering a legacy
JOSEPH TOLESHaving been a foster child himself, Joe Toles knows the special challenges faced by kids without their own families. He knows how many children on Long Island - far more than you'd think - are bounced from home to home to home. Toles, who grew up mostly in Uniondale, is a glowing foster success story now. He lives in Huntington and works with young people as head guidance counselor at Candlewood Middle School in Half Hollow Hills. Five years ago, he vowed to turn his personal experience into action, setting up the Joseph Toles Foundation (josephtolesfoundation.com) and sending 600 foster kids each summer to Camp Resilience. To help pay for that and other programs, he is planning a Fostering Youth Towards Their Future Golf Classic for May at the Stonebridge Golf Links and Country Club in Smithtown. Said Toles, who's now adopted two teenagers of his own: "At some point, some time, in some place, someone did something to help me. If they hadn't, statistics show I could be in jail or dead." Instead, he's fostering the future.
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