Glenn Koster knows all too well the plight facing foster children.
He speaks from experience, having gone through the system himself as a youth in the 1960s, a turbulent time that left him scarred in more ways than one.
Now, more than half a century later, Koster has dedicated his life to children’s issues.
Koster, a pastor living in Hutchinson, made it to Iola Saturday as part of his yearslong effort to walk from one county seat to the other.
Koster trekked from Yates Center to Iola, stopping briefly for a quick conversation with a Register reporter, and later for lunch in Piqua, before completing the 19.2-mile jaunt.
Koster, 67, is doing so to stress to others about the vital role foster families play in needy children’s lives.
His journey began late in 2021, before health issues and cold weather twice interrupted his effort.
In fact, Saturday was Koster’s first day back on the road since November. Yates Center and Iola were the 36th and 37th out of 105 county seats he’s visited.
His goal is to complete his walk by the end of 2024.
Walking for awareness is nothing new for Koster, who passed through Iola in 2015 during a walk from Eve, Mo., to Holly, Colo., to raise more than $10,000 for central Kansas children’s charities.
In 2018 and 2019, Koster made it from South Miami Beach to the Washington coast — more than 4,000 miles — to raise awareness on adoption and foster care services.
KOSTER’S upbringing reads like a Charles Dickens novel — if not a true horror story.
He was routinely sexually, physically and emotionally abused by his birth father until he abandoned Koster at age 6 in 1962.
He was adopted quickly, but that, too, led to more abuse and neglect and the adoption failed after only 13 months.
Koster was placed with a foster family six months later, but they were denied a chance at adopting Koster because the father, at age 60, was too old to be considered.
Tragedy struck a few months later, when Koster’s foster father died of a heart attack.
Koster’s next foster family was his last. John and Alice Visser had raised 12 kids of their own, and then started taking in foster children. Koster was the 13th and final child they took in. He remained with the family until he was adopted as a 10-year-old in 1966.
THE EXPERIENCE left deep scars.
Little did he realize, but Koster had developed many of his father’s bad habits when he became an adult.
