This teacher adopted a student she says was in need of 'love' and support

For the staff at Willard Elementary School in the Kensington section of the city, the signs were always pretty obvious that something was wrong.

"I would clean him up every day in the morning. He was just a child, you could tell he needed a lot more love and support than he was getting," said Penny Hlat, the student's kindergarten teacher at the time.

Kelly McCloskey recalls being asked: "'He's got no place to go, would you be willing to take him?'"

She knew the boy only in passing.

"I did say, 'Let me call my husband first.' By 7 o'clock that evening, he was in our house. So I promised him everything was going to be alright and he would always have a connection to his family," she said.

Santo McCloskey is now 9. He couldn't be prouder of the place he now calls home, and of the people he now calls mom and dad. After about two years, the McCloskeys officially adopted Santo.