Foster child suspended at school finds her forever home after a chance meeting with principal

Some people are meant to meet and change each other's lives forever. This is what happened with Raven Whitaker-Smith and Jason Smith, whose chance meeting changed everything instantly. They met each other as principal and student but came out as a parent and daughter, as reported by Good Morning America. Today, Whitaker is in a much better place, building a beautiful life for herself, which probably would never happened if not for that chance meeting. Both are extremely proud of the bond they fostered after the fateful meeting and expect to be in each other's life forever.

The meeting happened because of a folly on Whitaker's part. She was then 11 years old and had caused a food fight in her cafeteria. Later, was sent to Smith's office, who was the principal of the school. "I found myself in the principal's office one day after starting a food fight in the cafeteria," Whitaker said. "The principal asked me if I would start a food fight if I were out to dinner with my family. When I blurted out that I did not have a family, he said he felt like a complete jerk. I was a foster kid living at Holly Hill. That conversation led him to have a conversation with his wife and the rest is history."

Though the girl was handed a suspension due to her antics, she also gained something else from the conversation - empathy. The conversation touched Smith's heart and he straightaway went to his wife Marybeth to talk about Whitaker. They wanted to make a positive impact on her life and decided to open their homes to her as foster parents. The couple did not have any children of their own and this felt like a godsend opportunity. Smith's wife met Whitaker and was as smitten by her as her husband.

The move-in happened in 2015. The experience was so great that Whitaker soon began calling them Mom and Dad. "He and my mom went through training and became certified to be foster parents through DCCH Center with the intention of fostering me. They could not have kids of their own and something I said that day led them to know in their hearts that I was what their family needed," Whitaker said. "My mom says she always questioned why she could not have kids until the day she met me," Whitaker wrote on the DCCH Center for Children and Families' Facebook post.

The Smiths, after two years, adopted Whitaker officially. "I really believe there are no bad children," Jason Smith said. "Children are a product of their environment and the people who raise them, or who don't raise them unfortunately, so given the right opportunity, given the proper support, love and affection, all children can be successful."

The Smiths achieved what they set out to do with Whitaker, giving her a great future. At present, she is studying as a junior at the University of Kentucky. "If you had told 11-year-old me that I would be a junior in college, she would have laughed you off the planet. Being in foster care completely changed my life," she wrote in an essay. "Being fostered by a great set of parents did not erase my trauma, but they provided me with an atmosphere where I learned how to work through it, believe in myself and give hope to a hopeless kid." In a conversation with Local 12, Marybeth said: "If you're out there and you're thinking about fostering a kid, don't be afraid to take a teenager...I couldn't love her anymore if I had given birth to her."