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Janet Rivera always wanted a lot of kids.

“I always imagined a big dining room table with six kids sitting around it,” she said.

While fate may have given her only one biological child, life has given her more than 500. Rivera is the unofficial mom to the children at Washington Irving School in Sleepy Hollow, where she is a teaching assistant.

She comes to work early every day to make sure the kids in the cafeteria eat their breakfast. She readily gives out hugs and wipes away tears. She watches out for the children on the playground and makes them talk to each other if she sees they are not being nice.  more »