MIDDLEBURG, Pa. — For one central Pennsylvania woman who has opened her heart and home to many, the spirit of Mother’s Day is felt each week during Sunday dinner.

Tammy Clinger, who has two biological sons, has spent the past two decades raising nearly 60 other young men and women who also lovingly call her “Mom.”

Last Sunday, about 20 of them gathered at the Middleburg, Pennsylvania home of Clinger and her husband, Paul, for a meal after church, as they do each weekend.

Clinger sat at the head of the dining room table with her biological sons, Allen, 26, and Dale, 24; three adopted children, Mackenzie, 23, Sean, 20 and Alexis, 16, and several of the 59 foster children she and Paul have cared for since 1997.

“We all call her ‘Mom,’” Jess Clinger, Allen Clinger’s wife, said.

Most of the foster children the couple has taken in have been young women.

“My heart has always been with teenage girls,” Tammy Clinger, 45, said. Clinger is one of several of her church’s volunteers involved in building a local transitional home for young homeless women and their families.

Cherakee Yonkin was 16 and pregnant when she came to live with the Clinger family. Now 21 and a mother of two, she still leans on Clinger and the extended family.

“It’s like one big support group,” she said.

Sundays are usually a way for the family to reconnect as the children grow older and start raising their own families. Clinger counts 21 grand-babies, including Dale and Ashley Clinger’s infant twins.

Bobbie Walker, 31, looks forward to the Sunday gatherings, but recalls a time when she wanted no part of a new family and resisted going into foster care.

“I wanted to go back to juvie,” she said of her wish at 17 to return to a juvenile detention center rather than move into a stranger’s house.

“There’s structure and love here,” explained Edith Lefever, who came to the Clingers’ home at age 13 and stayed through her sophomore year of college.

“It’s a natural family. When someone asks how many siblings I have, I just say I don’t know.”

For others, Clinger is a spiritual mother.

Tiffany Everly is married to Clinger’s 32-year-old brother and often seeks out her counsel on life and other issues.

“I see her as a mom more than a sister-in-law,” Everly said.

Sean Clinger, who was adopted at the age of 6, gushes about his “awesome family” and “wonderful” mom.

“She didn’t love us because she had to,” he said. “She loved us because she wanted to.”

Fostering so many young women and men has been a rewarding calling for Clinger.

“I don’t give them anything that God hasn’t given me,” she said.

Allen Clinger said he and his brother have reaped the benefits from living with so many foster siblings.

“Seeing mom raise all these girls showed us how to treat our wives,” he said.
Sitting at his side and surrounded by loved ones, Clinger just beamed.

Moore writes for the Sunbury, Pennsylvania Daily Item.