Twins walk across the 50 states to raise awareness and support for kids in foster care

Davon and Tavon Woods of South Carolina are walking 20 miles in all 50 states to raise awareness for the foster care system. The 27-year-olds, born to a crack-addicted mother and placed in foster care at two years old, felt that the streets would be their only home. However, today those streets have a new purpose.

Untill now, the brothers have walked over 20 states and say they will not stop until their message reaches everybody. "Davon and Tavon are working toward a goal. They want to reach the 50 states and they are almost there. They are determined young boys to get their point across," Felicia Bradshaw, their friend, told Good Morning America.

The twins, who have an unfortunate yet inspiring life story, want to inspire children in foster care to not loose hope. "We do it because growing up, we didn't know what love was. I never heard 'I love you.' Just so much hurt, so much anger," Davon said. "So instead of allowing our past to defeat us, we allow it to motivate kids around the world." 

The twim brothers founded the organization, Foster Kids Matter, which is committed to helping foster children in Georgia and has the mission of fighting and supporting every foster child in the system. “I was inspired to become a foster kids advocate. If I hadn’t had that experience, I would never have done it,” Davon added.

Colleen Kelly, their former teacher, said they turned their pain into something beautiful, "They're so resilient. Look at what they've taken with their pain. I just feel grateful for them, grateful that they have the opportunity to share their voice, their story."

The twins said their goal is to open quality foster care and housing facilities for young people aging out of the foster care system. "This last year I think we helped about seven to eight kids who had aged out of the foster care system. We gave them a place to stay when we didn't even have a place to stay. It's because we want these kids to know we love and care about them," Davon shared.

"Keeping It Fresh," a program that partners with foster care organizations to get new shoes for foster care children, is one of their endeavors through which they are making foster care children feel loved. "Oftentimes kids in foster care are not able to get what they want. We just want to boost their confidence," Tavon said. Designer Brands surprised the twins with a $10,000 donation to Foster Kids Matter "We are going to make sure this gets used and make sure these kids are blessed," Davon added.

When the twins were adopted by the Woods family at the age of 2, they said their adoptive family was far from ideal. “We had a very difficult childhood with our adoptive family,” Davon explained. “We got physically and verbally abused, we were never given a voice and they never once told us they loved us. It felt like we were just a paycheck, but we were too young and afraid to tell anyone what was happening at home.”

Their experience made them rebel as teenagers, who turned to drugs, dropped out of school and Davon even made multiple suicide attempts. Since then, the twins have been committed towards supporting other foster care children and inspire them to have hope. Davon said: "We are going to make sure this gets used and make sure these kids are blessed. We just want to let kids all around the world know that they can make it."