Placerville resident Bill Fuser vividly recalls the moment he realized how bad life could get for kids who fall between the cracks of the foster care system. After getting his master’s degree in social work, he landed a job in San Joaquin County. Part of his responsibilities involved removing children from homes deemed too dirty or unsafe for their well-being. However, he soon began to notice that many of those children languished in the system for years, drifting from one foster home to the next. “They’d still be removed, three years later,” Fuser recalls. “It made me look at things differently. I started thinking about how we could do better for those kids.” To that end, he founded Lilliput Children’s Services (lilliput.org), a nonprofit that works with parents, guardians, and county officials to provide the best possible outcome for children in the foster care system. This might mean working with birth parents to get children back in their homes more quickly or placing them with foster families actively looking to adopt.

Nearly four decades later, Lilliput is still going strong. And although Fuser is now retired—and he and his wife, Lois Patrick, are enjoying the prospect of adventures in their RV—he continues to give back by serving as the board president for Child Advocates of El Dorado County (CASA El Dorado) and delivering meals to the elderly through Meals on Wheels. “I believe we have a responsibility to care for the most vulnerable members of our community,” he shares.  

By Amber Foster

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