On Dec. 13 Paul and Jill Keenon became parents – again.

Their new daughter is their 12th child, the eighth to be adopted into their family and one of 11 girls. She came with the name Allison, has long brown hair, a generous spirit like their own and the heart of a homegrown country girl.

Allison Squire Keenon Quick also is 39-years-old. She has been without her biological parents since the age of 19 and knows there is no outgrowing the need to have someone to call mom and dad.

“There is security,” Paul Keenon explained.

“There is commitment,” added Quick.

Since getting involved in the foster care system 27 years ago, the Keenons have taken on some of the most difficult of cases – teens pulled from drug-infested homes, others plagued with thoughts of suicide, schizophrenia and hopelessness.

But like Quick, their adopted children all share a common bond: age.

All have been older children who have less hope of finding a permanent home through the foster system. The youngest to be adopted was 15 years old and the oldest is now Quick, who met the Keenons six years ago after being hired to run their second foster home.

“The search for a family connection is so fundamental to who we are as human beings,” said Kendall Marlowe, spokesman with the Department of Children and Family Services.

Marlowe said as a child ages through the foster system, their chances of being adopted continue to drop. However, the need to have a family never waivers, regardless of age.

This is what makes having families like Keenons so important.

“I don’t care what you are – an adult or teenager – you belong. You are committed,” said Paul Keenon.

Their initial decision to foster or adopt teenagers into their Wheaton home came about as a means to avoid facing the possibility that a parent would come back into the picture. This was something the couple experienced early on in their marriage after agreeing to temporarily take in a relative’s one-year-old son. After they raised him for nearly four years, the father asked for him back.

“We were just married, and five months later we took in my nephew,” Jill Keenon said.

It was a feeling of loss they never wanted to repeat.

It also is what inspired them to launch Open Door for Teens, a nonprofit organization that provides foster care and support to older teens in cooperation with local and regional child care agencies such as DCFS. It was officially incorporated in 1990, according to the Illinois Secretary of State’s Office. The Keenons are former licensed foster parents by DCFS, and Quick and her husband Will are currently licensed.

Open Door for Teens specializes in taking in young adults ages 13 to 18 to live in a foster home run by the Quicks. The Keenon’s home also operates as a safe haven to those too old to be part of the foster system, yet have nowhere to go. More than 400 foster teens have come through their front door through the years.

The organization also led them to the eight children they have adopted, children with a deeper connection to the couple – and to the entire family. All Keenon kids are asked to vote on whether they would like another sibling. Although none have ever objected, Paul Keenon said some concerns have been raised that they work through as a family.

The cost of having such a large family also is no small expense. The average monthly grocery bill is nearly $1,200 a month.

However, the two have always managed to make it work – both financially and emotionally. As executive and assistant directors of Open Door, the Keenons earn a salary that is supported by donations to the organization. In fiscal year 2009, Open Door raised about $91,000.

And it is through that teamwork they have managed to turn their household of strangers into a connected family.

“It’s just interesting to watch them as kids,” Jill Keenon said while choking back tears. “It just seems like they are a family.”

Whether the foster child legally will agree to the adoption also is part of the process, explained daughter McKenzie Keenon.

Now 25, she was brought to Open Door for Teens after running away from more than a dozen other agencies. Although she eventually settled into life at the Keenon’s, she said it was a difficult decision to be formally adopted.

Her mother died when she was 11, and she didn’t want to dishonor her by accepting the Keenons as her parents. This, too, was something Quick struggled with.

“I feel less chaos in my life,” McKenzie Keenon said of her adoption. “Even if it is chaotic here, it is a peace.”

For more information on Open Door for Teens, go to odft.org.