Best selling author Steve Pemberton talks about overcoming challenges during CASA Kane County luncheon

The 2017 movie “A Chance in the World” tells the true story of a boy mentally and physically abused by his foster family for 11 years.

The fact that Steve Pemberton was able to overcome his circumstances to become a Fortune 500 executive is a testament to the power of the “human lighthouses” who guided his way.

“I am the third generation to be orphaned,” Pemberton told those attending CASA Kane County’s 10th annual superheroes luncheon on Thursday at the Q Center in St. Charles. “I was orphaned. My father was orphaned. My grandfather was orphaned.”

CASA, which stands for Court Appointed Special Advocate, is a nonprofit, volunteer organization that advocates for abused and neglected children within the county’s juvenile court system.

“Our goal collectively with our community is to advocate for the best interest of children who have experienced abuse and neglect within their homes,” CASA Kane County Executive Director Jim Di Ciaula said prior to Pemberton taking the podium.

The movie “A Chance in the World” is based on Pemberton’s book, “A Chance in the World: An Orphan Boy, A Mysterious Past, and How He Found a Place Called Home.” He was taken from his mother at a young age because she was an alcoholic.

“My father would be murdered when I was 5,” he said. “And yet things got worse after that because I would find myself in turbulent foster home after foster home.”

But Pemberton is able to escape his family’s past, which he attributed to the right people coming into his life.

“I’m a reflection actually of what happens when seemingly ordinary people coming into a young boy’s life and unknowingly changed the trajectory of it, not aware of the impact that they’re having,” he said.

He talked about those who helped him in his 2021 book, “The Lighthouse Effect: How Ordinary People can Have An Extraordinary Impact in the World.”

At the luncheon, Pemberton talked about the people who lifted him up, including a woman who used to bring him books as a young boy.

“She did this for the 11 years when I was in this one particular cruel and violent foster home,” he said. “Most times I never saw her. I would see a box of books that she would bring me and leave by the door.”

The impact of her actions was felt right away.

“I poured myself into those books and subsequently, it made me a really good student,” Pemberton said. “It made me the spelling bee champ of my elementary school, which I really looked forward to in part because I knew I was going to win. And so did everybody else.”

Some 35 years later, Pemberton met the woman and asked her why she left the books for him.

“She said she was doing something that her mother told her to do, to give whatever you have. The books that she brought me were the books that her three sons no longer read and when they were done with them, she put them in a box by the front door and she brought them to me. For 11 years she does this, never knowing the impact until I show up on her doorstep 35 years later.”

More information about CASA Kane County is available on its website at casakanecounty.org.