this is "nightline." tonight, fostered and forgotten, we are with some of the most vulnerable. >> you just got to hope for the best. >> in the past six years i have been to five houses. it was tough. i don't like moving. >> waiting longer to find forever homes, how they are transforming pain in to purpose. plus, fighting the failures of the american foster care system. >> she said, i was luck willy to have a home. >> why shaquille o'neal is on a new mission. >> i'm not a foster kid, i always had my mom and dad, whatfy didn't. how does that feel? >> how the basketball legend plans to put children first. >> and the boy with the big little heart. making sure no one goes hungry this had thanksgiving.

>> thank you, for making it work. >> "nightline," will be right back. just between us, cleaning with a mop and bucket is such a hassle. well i switched to swiffer wet jet and it's awesome. it's an all-in-one that absorbs dirt and grime deep inside. and it helps prevent streaks and haze. stop cleaning. start swiffering

welcome to 15 days of saving up to $500 on fast, reliable internet and... on the most reliable network. welcome to family-connecting, holiday-shopping, black friday awesome. because, for a limited time, when you get xfinity internet and mobile together... ...you can get a $200 prepaid card... ...and up to $300 off select mobile phones... ...for up to $500 in savings. this sale won't last, so click, call, or visit a store today! ♪ >> evening and thank you for joining us. tonight thousands of foster children in america hungry for a mace to call home. their loneliness pro found as

the pandemic shows no signs of slowing down. but the resilience of the young people, stead fast and shining through. here is adrian baker, a story this in our turning point series. ♪ ♪ to the left, to the left >> it goes to the left, to the left had. everything in you own in the box to the left. but the chorus goes, don't you ever for a second get to thinking you are irreplaceable. >> millions girls are made her resilience in her challenging times in her had life. >> it helps me stay strong, keep your head up and better days will come and you will find somebody else. i feel like people should be more open minded that it's not the kid's fault that they are in

foster care. >> reporter: for the past five years she has beecare system in area, once her mom was unable to financially support her and her siblings. >> when i was 10 and 11, i was actually confused and shocked. like, look. you are in the foster system. their rules, what they say, you are not my mom. i missed had my mom and brotherd it was different. at that time, i literally would just pray. >> reporter: this time she found family in her care giver. her 9th foster home in five years. it's hard to feel at home when you are always moving. a triplet, the pandemic made it more difficult for her to see her siblings. >> it's challenging for kids not in stable placements and in visitation. if they have visitation with their parents, it came to a halt in the covid season and now,

it's like, it's up in the air. >> reporter: she is an estimated one of 400,000 in the foster care system, 54% of them are black or latino and the pandemic hit that group the hardest. >> those groups are facing insurinsur insurer -- insurmountable challenges. and couple it with the pan democrat i -- we have to be understanding and take action. >> a lot of people don't understand it's not that easy to be a foster kid. like, at school, i do not say i'm a foster kid, i relate to my foster families as brothers and sisters, mom and dad. because i feel it's uncomfortable how people stereo type foster children. >> reporter: now as the country

be braces for a new wave of the pandemic, there's some feeling isolation in a whole other level. >> during the covid, i started journaling. i be writing in there about my family and what i hope in the future and that they are all >> reporter: with family court shutting down, visitation suspended a reported increase in domestic and child abuse and simply nowhere to go for many of them. thousands of foster kids around the country are bearing the brunt of a world paralyzed by coronavirus. >> some children have had to live in other homes, waiting to be reconnected and reunified with their parent. >> reporter: lyndsay collins is the ceo of first star, a nonprofit that has focused on created and offering support systems to propel foster youth like azaria in to higher education. is the pandemic adding to the

trauma and extending that time to be viable members of societity? >> there's a sense of increased anxiety happening among many youth in the system. especially your teenage ers in care. they are not in the system because they have committed a bad act. they are in the system because their parents or their family unit could not take care of them. >> reporter: we met azaria earlier this year at the height of the pandemic. separated from her family and her school. like many students remote learning trying to make the best of it. >> me justoi i have to do. getting good grades. staying focused and having good behavior. was just one thing that i just had to just teach myself. >> reporter: as millions children across the country have difficulties with online learning, those in some

communities are struggling with online learning. >> i advocated for a laptop, i knew i would need one, and the time, i did not have one with. so i made sure that i told my social worker and e-mailed my attorney too. dang, having a laptop for school is the best thing you can ever have. >> for foster youth, it's really important. lack of connectivity and lack of devices to access classrooms and then, lack of desire and want to attend classes. because of the pandemic. to significant learning loss within the population of foster youth. >> i'm a student that like to be more hands on and like talk to the teacher about problems that i don't understand. >> reporter: reduce the country in camden, new jersey, this young woman is trying to navigate the system. >> i don't tell many people my situation. i only tell a few that are like close to me. only a few people now and then.

for others i'm a normal kid going to school, just with regular problems. >> reporter: she was 11 years old when she and her three sisters were separated after her mom was arrested. >> they came in and they were like, we need you guys to come with uses and i was just like, okay. i did not understand. i was just like, i was not going back to my parents. >> reporter: her family is undocumented and immigrated from honduras, her mother was eventually deported, forcing her three children in the foster care system. >> like at the beginning me andmy sister were separated and for a few weeks and we came back to another house. another foster houses and we were there for two years the four of us together. we search a couple families to adopt out, it never worked out and then my two younger ones got adopt period and me and my big sister didn't. in the past six years i have been to five houses. i don't like moving. i hate it. it's like you get used to people and school, to friends and then they just come out of nowhere

and are like, okay, you are moving. >> reporter: since then she and her older sister have been working to find a forever home together. >> i have been working in adoption. getting adopted with this family. >> reporter: in 2017, sisters received welcome news. a family wanted to adopt them. but since then, laws and regulations due to their residency status have slowed down the process. now they are on a path to citizenship. but with the pandemic, it has all been put on hold. >> everything slowed down because of covid. >> teenagers in care spend the most time in the foster system. with the pandemic, those students that had a chance to be adopted or to end up in guardianship, had to wait even longer. >> reporter: for these kids the one thing they crave is the one thing they don't have, stability. >> i want to be a teenager, get my driver's license, and drive and work and go out when i want.

it's been tough. i see my friends and they are like, i'm driving now and i'm like, i want to drive. >> reporter: she points to her big sister, jennifer as her rock. >> if we didn't have each other during all this time, it would be very difficult. >> she has been through way worse than me. and like the fact that she just walks around and smiles and makes me smile, it's like, i enjoy that from her had. that she is happy. >> reporter: despite her positive outlook, she wants everyone to know there's scars we don't see. >> kids really get lonely, i guess. kids know how to hide it. they need that support for you to tell them. in a while, you l them and you are there for them. >> reporter: with a year left in high school, she has big dreams of what is ahead. >> when i picture my future, i think i want to go for immigration lawyer had or an actress. i would love to be an actress, just be out there.

this is just, just a little obstacle that i have and i will be who i want to be when i get older. like this is not going stop me. >> reporter: if there's one word to describe kids like this, it's undefeated. >> when i think of myself in ten years, i see me already starting my career. doing good, focusing on my job in friends and family. >> reporter: a zmpzaria was abl break through and see her biological mop. a break through she was waiting for for years. >> not every foster child is going to go through a good experience luke i have been through. >> reporter: now, as they take steps in to figuring out young adulthood, both are focused on giving back. >> i will love, i have a good life, i would love to be a foster parent to be honest and just help kids.

>> our thanks to adrian. coming up, shaq first taking the nba by storm. and now taking on the american foster care system. in a whole. now roomba vacuums exactly where you need it, and offers personalized cleaning suggestions for a clean unique to you and your home. roomba and the irobot home app. only from irobot. kisave it slimeball.ting her congestion. roomba and the irobot home app. i've upgraded to mucinex. we still have 12 hours to australia. mucinex lasts 12 hours, so i'm good. now move! kim, no! mucinex lasts 3x longer for 12 hours.

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just like you watch over your best friend. another life-changing technology from abbott, so you don't wait for life. you live it. ♪ shaquille o'neal may have retired from the basketball court but he is not shying away from a different spotlight. spearheading a movie that looks at the abuses in the foster care system. a project he is hoping will be a game changer. >> reporter: it's february 2020. just weeks before the world

would shut down from covid. and we are with shaquille o'neal at the pan african film festival in l.a. they are here for the movie "foster boy," a movie about the failings of the american foster care system. produced by a real life super hero. shaq, and known by fans as superman. while no one anticipated how a pandemic would bring the country to a standstill, shaq has not stopped doing a lot of good. we were able to reconnect this fall to discuss the film and how 2020 has taken a toll on so many, especially the foster suspect. >> i had a couple of relatives pass away from covid. it's a tough year from everybody. >> reporter: while shaquille has championed the causes of children. he said that producing this film opened his eyes. >> it's a guy that came to me and was, like you want to know something about the foster care

system? i thought i knew everything about it and i didn't. when i got the information it was not really good. didn't like what i see. i was like, people should be aware of this. because i'm not a foster kid. i've always had my mom and dad, what if i didn't? how does that feel? so, if we can bring awareness to the situation try to help them make change, that's what i'm always about. >> i see you -- >> reporter: the film tells the story of jamaal, imprisoned after years of abuse in the system. what made you want to take the stories that you heard of neglect and the plight of so many foster youth in the country and get it on a screen and make a movie out of it? >> because that shouldn't go on. shouldn't go on. all the stories hurt my heart. >> by age 8 a cruel fate. found a meaning in loss. ripped from the comfort of a family and taken by cops.

>> it shouldn't happen. and that can mess with you mentally. >> reporter:er for the rest of your life. >> forever, forever. and that doesn't need to happen. like, when a person's down, what is below bottom? a lot of people don't come back from that. you have to show, i love you. you have to show them the way. >> reporter: peter samuelsson produced foster boy with shaq. it was important for him to provide more awareness about what he calls a broken system. >> 9% of american foster kids go to college. 3% earn a degree. our kids, 89% go to college. it's transformative, in the end, there's nothing matter with the kids and a lot the matter with the grown ups and the system. >> reporter: of the to approximately 400,000 kids in the foster care system, 23,000 age out without ever finding a

perpendicul permanent family of their own on. and face teen pregnancy, suicide and incarceration. >> this is the last great civil rights struggle that never had a day one. they don't be vote. they are children. >> i'm sure a lot of pressure has been put on the kids. research shows that smiling releases chemicals in your face and your brain, helps you feel a little bit better. so when i meet a person, i just try to make them laugh. but, a lot of the kids, when reality kicks back in, the laugh was cool for a second, when reality kicks back in, they go back to the space. >> reporter: in a year of pandemic proportions, even a giant can be shaken. >> you know, there's a saying that there's certain things you will never forget. >> reporter: the hall of famer has had his own share of heartbreak. his sister passed a year ago from cancer and they are family sharing tributes on social media. >> certain things that you will never think could happen.

never will think my little sister would go before me. my perfect little sister. and then, the kobe. >> in spite of grief, he believes that projects like foster boy andthe advocacy around it can be a game change er. >> i met a lot of the kids that just hold stuff inside. they just hold it. nobody understands, nobody cares. i think once they know that there are people that understand and care, they are going to start open up. and i hope this story teaches the world about compassion. we need compassion more than ever these days. >> reporter: where can ddid you this heart, this humility and desire to pour out olove? >> it's from listening to my mother and father, i just want to make people smile. it's not going to happen right away. we are working on it.

to all the foster kids, i love you. you have inis a gram, twitter, call on me, i will do whatever i have to do to make you smile. >> what is your legacy? >> i had the answer for the world, i would give it and i would give it for free. what would i like my legacy to be for the next generation? i would like to leave a blueprint of what made me what i am today. it's honor, compassion, respect and understanding. if the world was like that, it would be a better place. >> foster boy is streaming now. up next, the little boy and his big message. love is greater unanimothan cov. a it's superior grease-cleaning formula gets to work faster, making easy work of tough messes dawn takes care of tough grease, wherever it shows up. scrub less, save more...with dawn

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♪ and finally tonight, feeding the soul. >> we are picking up groceries that people donated for the pantry. we have got this. this. this. and this. >> you would not know it, but this seven-year-old was not always this cheerful. bullied at a young age, this

maryland boy fought back by spreading love. handing out care packages with food and toiletries to neighbors and when food poured in, he and his mother opened the food pantry. sharing nothing but good times in the tough times. good for him. that's "nightline" for this evening, catch our full episodes on hulu, see you back here tomorrow. thanks for the company, america, good night. you're constantly on the go, on the clock, and on your way. hang on a second. what's the rush? know the speed limit, go the speed limit, and slow the fast down. go safely, california.