Pitalo's roots lie in a tough background shared by more than 400,000 other children in the United States. Born in Portland, her birth parents struggled with drug addiction while raising six children. At the age of two, Pitalo and her siblings were removed from their home and placed into the foster care system, almost certainly facing separation from their birth parents as well as each other. Surprisingly, the group was taken in by an older foster parent couple in Salem and six years later, the pair adopted Whitney and four of her siblings (her youngest sister was raised by an aunt), an astoundingly rare occurrence for large groups of children bouncing around the system (all six siblings pictured below).
"It's unheard of," she says. "My foster parents, who are now my real parents, are amazing people who sacrificed a lot."
The first in her family to graduate from a four-year university, Pitalo has exceeded expectations in more ways than one. Her childhood love of soccer led her to USC and helped her discover her life's passion, connecting the circle of her story back to where she started. As she reflects back on the last four, and 22 years, she feels more certain than ever where her road is taking her.
"I have more direction in my life in terms of where I want to go," says Pitalo. "I'm more confident in my values and my beliefs and know where I'm headed. My freshman year was all about soccer and just getting by, now it's much bigger than that."
When she moved to Los Angeles from Oregon four years ago, Pitalo slowly learned to balance soccer and school just like her fellow Trojan student-athletes, finding her way and herself on and off the pitch. She started as a psychology major but soon found a better match in a new program that examined the use of business for social change. Her junior year, she interned at a nonprofit for a class requirement and never stopped, another step closer to finding something outside of soccer that matched her love for her sport.
"It's been really busy," Pitalo acknowledges. "But you make time for things you want. When there is that passion inside of you it doesn't feel like too much. If you know your roots, what and where you come from, that's the most important thing. If you find something that's tied to your roots, to who you are, I'm pretty sure you'll have passion for it and something will come of that."
Before college, Pitalo's biggest passion was for soccer, and as she entered high school she watched as the beautiful game opened doors for her that are rarely open to foster kids. Four years after receiving a scholarship from USC, she is hoping to open those same doors for foster kids just like her.
"A lot of things aren't working [in the foster system]," Pitalo explains. "I got really lucky, and I know that and that's why I'm so passionate about changing it. I was lucky to stay with all of my siblings, but all of my older siblings had to deal with hard stuff. There is so much trauma sustained by kids in the process. I was so lucky not to experience that."
Pitalo was raised by foster parents (right) who loved and supported her, a simple yet often hard-to-find environment in today's foster care system. When she says she considers herself lucky, it's because her upbringing kept her from the unfortunate reality facing most foster kids. According to the US Department of Health and Human Services, children emerging from the foster care system are five times more likely to develop PTSD and seven times more likely to develop drug dependence than a child not raised in foster care. Twenty-five percent of foster children experience homelessness within four years of leaving the system, and 48 percent will be unemployed for an extended period of time at some point in adulthood. Less than 10 percent of foster children will go on to graduate from college.Â
In her current internship at The Right Way Foundation in Los Angeles, Pitalo and her coworkers help transitional-age foster youth learn life skills, find resources and apply for jobs. She is appreciative and proud of the work that they do but believes strongly that change needs to happen at a higher level in order to help foster youth in a tangible and large-scale fashion.
"There are things that need to change," Pitalo says with conviction. "There needs to be more consistency. Foster kids need real relationships, because that's what every person needs to grow and to thrive. To bounce around between pseudo-relationships is unhealthy. The trauma inside is what's hindering them from doing what they need to and want to do. That's the area I really want to work and help in."
Guided by a deeply personal and societally important mission, USC's 2016 female Pac-12 Post Graduate scholarship recipient is headed back home to attend Willamette University to get her master's. From there, she wants to work for benefit corporations, leveraging business to do good for society, and then one day in government, where she can help to fix the country's broken foster care system.
But before she sets off to change the world, Pitalo will celebrate on Thursday alongside family, teammates and coaches, and there's a lot for her to be both happy about and thankful for. For her scholarship to Willamette next year, for four amazing years at USC, for a love of soccer that carried her from Salem to Southern California and back again and most of all, for a foster family and story that's one-of-a-kind. At graduation, Pitalo will celebrate that story, with the hope and confidence that one day she can help other foster children have a chance at the same happy ending. Â
