Dickey family answer call to help children
By Mark Ambrogi
Tom Dickey’s life took a turn he never expected when his three oldest children were born with a genetic neuromuscular disease.
“We were thrusted into this life with three children in wheelchairs but it has transformed how we look at life,” said Dickey, who also has an adopted son. “My wife has always had a servant’s heart. I think I’ve learned my servant’s heart from the perspective from having the kids that we have. Most all of our free time we have is spent with our kids, but beyond that is serving mainly people with disabilities.”
Dickey, 47, and his wife, Peggy, who began dating when they were 13 and married when they were 20, started two Challenger baseball leagues for children with disabilities.
“It’s not like we woke up and thought let’s go change the world for kids with disabilities,” said Dickey, who worked as the city of Fishers’ community development director before leaving in late May to become Hageman Group’s managing director of real estate. “We had three children with disabilities so we were going to change the world for them, like any other parent would do.”
Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness said, “Tom was a tremendous asset to our leadership team, and helped put Fishers on a path for long-term sustainability. His contribution will benefit Fishers for decades.”
The Dickeys’ oldest child Katie, 24, teaches seventh grade at an inner-city school in Phoenix, Ariz., as part of the Teach for America program. Jordan, 22, graduated from Arizona State University. Zach, 16, just finished his freshman year at Pendleton Heights High School.
The effects of their children’s neuromuscular disease vary.
“Jordan can’t get in and out of his chair by himself,” Dickey said. “He can eat by himself but he has no movement in his hands. Katie can walk a little but not very far. But she is strong enough to do all of daily stuff without aids. Zach is a combination of the two. He can’t walk as well as Katie but he is really strong in his upper body. Katie and Jordan are in power wheelchairs but Zach is strong enough to push a manual wheelchair.”
The Dickeys noticed Katie’s walking gait wasn’t right and they took her to the Mayo Clinic to get her condition diagnosed.
“Jordan got real sick when he was 11 months and we almost lost him several times,” Dickey said. “He spent months at Riley Hospital on a ventilator.”
Dickey and his wife always worked hard to help their children be independent.
“We want to make sure they are just differently abled, that there is nothing they can’t do,” Dickey said. “Katie has been on two mission trips to Uganda and worked at schools for kids with disabilities.”
Jordan, who was a sports business major, interned with the Indy Eleven last summer.
Katie and Jordan played on an Arizona State club team that won a national championship last year and are on the USA National Power soccer team. Zach plays on a power wheelchair soccer team, called the RHI Racers, that his father coaches. The RHI Racers finished fifth in the national tournament last year.
“We’ve been to Paris twice when they played and won the World Cup,” Dickey said. “Jordan started and Katie was the first one off the bench.”
Fostering success
Dickey’s fourth child, Tyler, 7, was the Dickeys’ first foster child and does not have any medical issues.
“We had no intention of adopting but we changed that after a year,” Dickey said. “His mother’s rights were terminated and his dad was never in his life so we adopted him when he was 18 months old.”
Tyler had come to live with the Dickeys when he was an infant. Dickey said there is always at least one foster child living in the house.
“We’ve fostered 30 to 40 kids in the seven years we’ve been doing it,” he said. “Some are just for a weekend stints and we’ve had some kids for a year-in-a-half or two years at a time.”
Dickey began fostering children while he was at Duke Reality working on a large multi-used development called Anson in Whitestown. Carroll and Mary Willey, who have since both died, lived near the Anson development.
“The Willeys had fostered 347 children in their home,” Dickey said. “My team at Duke we kind of adopted them. They were still fostering and they were in their 80s when we met them. On our volunteer days, we would always go to the Willeys’ house.”
Mary Willey sent a newsletter to the Dickeys’ house. Dickey said he and his wife each read the newsletter for a year without really talking about it.
“But God was working on both of us to get into fostering,” Dickey said.
So they talked to the Willeys about fostering and took Tyler in at three weeks old in 2008.
“We think everything that happens in life happens because God has a plan for us,” Dickey said. “As a family, we felt we were being called to serve. It felt right that it was fostering. It’s hard work.”
The Dickeys typically take in children who have diagnosis of failure to thrive or medical issues.
“People always say they couldn’t be a foster parent because they have to give the kids back,” Dickey said. “You’ve got to get comfortable what with your role is. You have to get comfortable when the phone rings at 10 o’clock at night that that’s your moment whether it’s the next two days until they find a grandparent or the next two years until they find an adoptive family.”
