Paul and Aimee Budrow
Methow Valley residents Aimee and Paul Budrow are being honored as outstanding parents this month by the Washington Department of Children, Youth and Families.
The Budrows, who have a blended family of foster, adopted and biological children, will receive an “Unsung Hero Award” as part of National Parent Leadership Month held during February. They are among 28 nominees — one for each day of the month — who will be recognized at a dinner in Olympia on Feb. 25.
Aimee became licensed as a foster parent and began taking in foster children in 2009. Since their marriage in 2012, Aimee and Paul have provided a foster home to dozens of children. “I have lost track of how many kids we have fostered together,” Aimee said.
The Budrows “have repeatedly proved to be a model foster parent home,” said the written nomination that recommended them for the award. “Aimee has been invaluable in her assistance to other foster families and by her example helping others to believe they can be foster families also.”
The Budrow home, just south of Twisp, “is filled with the blend of biological children, adopted children and foster children. These labels don’t exist in their vocabulary, as everyone just becomes family with the full rights and responsibility of full family belonging,” the nomination said.
When Aimee underwent medical treatments over the past year, Paul, who is police chief for the town of Twisp, “was running the family and the community while Aimee recuperated, taking this all in stride.” The nomination also commended the Budrows for “helping the community with their volunteer time.”
The Budrows have eight children at home, and two more who live with them part of the time through a shared custody arrangement. They now “want to concentrate on their current family … as their children begin to graduate, becoming successful adults,” according to the nomination.
The Methow Valley News profiled the Budrows in a feature published in March 2015. It can be read here.
