Teen spends first Thanksgiving with new family
Champagne Dopudja sits with her mother Bobbi, father Mark, and sister-in-law, Angela Dopujda, back, at the Dopujdas’ home in Cecil. The couple adopted the 17-year-old, who spent most of her life in and out of foster care, on Aug. 18
Champagne Dopudja holds her new family tree. Each family member dipped their thumb into paint and made a thumbprint on a branch, along with their names, during a party welcoming her to the Dopudja family.
CECIL – There will be an extra table setting at the Cecil home of Mark and Bobbi Dopudja this Thanksgiving.
The couple adopted 17-year-old Champagne Dopudja, who spent most of her life in and out of foster care, on Aug. 18, and Thanksgiving marks the first holiday the family will spend together.
“What a blessed and thankful Thanksgiving we’re going to have. God has blessed us with two wonderful children,” Bobbi Dopudja said. “We have a lot to be thankful for.”
Champagne’s new family includes a brother, Marko, a sister-in-law, Angela, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins – and all have welcomed her.
“She was my little sister from Day One,” Marko said.
Dopudja, a paraeducator at North Strabane Intermediate School in Canon-McMillan School District, first met Champagne when the 10-year-old was a fifth-grader at Cecil Intermediate School, where Dopudja was previously assigned.
Dopudja recalled that Champagne, wearing dirty pajamas and a choppy crew cut, walked past her in the hallway with her head down.
“My heart went out to her. I had to find out who that little girl was,” said Dopudja, who saw Champagne briefly each morning.
But at the end of the school year, the girl moved out of the school district.
Mark Dopudja said his wife often talked about Champagne over the next few years, and wondered how she was doing. Occasionally, she would ask co-workers if they knew her whereabouts.
Said Mark Dopudja, “I had never met Champagne, but I felt like I knew her, and every now and then I would ask Bobbi if she had heard anything about her.”
Four years later, their paths crossed when Dopudja visited Canon-McMillan High School for an in-service day program.
There, sitting in the office, was Champagne. Her foster parent was registering the 15-year-old for ninth grade.
“She looked beautiful. Her hair had grown in,” Dopudja said. “She asked me if she could give me a hug, and my heart melted. I told her I would make sure to see her a lot more. I went into the stairwell and bawled.”
Then she got busy.
Dopudja contacted the Bair Foundation, which operates a foster care program that searches for stable living solutions, including adoption, when family reunification isn’t possible.
The Bair Foundation worked with Children and Youth Services to help the Dopudjas gain permanent legal custodianship so that Champagne could spend weekends with them. Then, one night, Champagne asked the question they all had been thinking about for a long time: Could the Dopudjas adopt her?
Bair helped the family take steps to begin the adoption process.
“We were able to save a child, to help her, to give her guidance and stability, and the love and attention she needed,” Dopudja said. “She didn’t have that. I’m grateful that we are able to provide that for her. Her childhood was corrupted. When I see her happy, and a smile on her face and doing something for the first time, I’m overwhelmed.”
There have been a lot of firsts. The Dopudjas have taken Champagne on several vacations since she moved in with them, to Gettysburg, Myrtle Beach, S.C., and Atlantic City, N.J., and they’ve visited several Pittsburgh-area attractions.
She’s invited over friends, gotten a part-time job at Sarris Candies, and discovered clothes shopping – all normal activities that she never had an opportunity to do.
She’s a straight-A student at Canon-Mac, where she’s a junior (administrators and teachers there have been instrumental in making her adjustment) and she said she plans to become a nurse.
But it hasn’t been easy. Champagne underwent extensive counseling to help her handle the struggles she endured, and she’s working to let her armor down.
“It means everything to me to have a new family and a mother I never had. Having a new family is something that happens to other children. It is something I never thought would happen to me,” Champagne said.
On Oct. 25, Mark, Bobbi, Marko (who also is adopted) and Angela hosted a welcome party for Champagne, and 110 family members and friends – every single relative and friend invited – showed up to celebrate.
“The family has embraced her. From the minute we sat everyone down and explained what we planned to do, they all loved her,” said Dopudja said.
Champagne told her parents she wanted to give back, and instead of bringing gifts, she asked guests to bring a $5 gift card that she could donate to the Bair Foundation.
The foundation gave the cards to foster care children,
Mark and Bobbi also told her she could have a disc jockey play at the party; instead, Champagne asked her grandfather, Frank Palombi, leader of the Frank Palombi Orchestra (and Bobbi Dopudja’s father), to play at the celebration.
Palombi, whose band plays polka music, was delighted, and Champagne danced her first polka with her mother.
Bobbi brought a canvas with a tree painted on it to the party. Every relative at the celebration dipped their thumbs in ink, pressed it to one of the branches, and wrote their name on the thumb print. It was a family tree, and Champagne’s name is also on the tree.
“She’s the new branch of our family tree,” Dopudja said.
Champagne said she is thankful to have a new start in life and a family who loves her.
This is where I belong,” Champagne said. “Now my family is complete.”