You’ll mostly likely find Don Joss — or DJ, as most patrons know him by — behind the counter, sporting a DJ’s Sportscards T-shirt, organizing new cards and taking inventory of his store that’s been nestled in a corner of Renton Highlands since 1990.

Joss went into business when collecting and trading sports cards were still at the top of their hype. He’s seen the decline of hobby and the slow resurgence of it as well.

“Sports cards were so hot back then. You didn’t have to be smart to make money from it then,” he said. “When the market finally crashed, there was a long decline where sports cards died out. In the last five or six years, it has been on the uprise again. People who had been kids in the boom… now they’re in their 40s, they have disposable income and this is a cheaper hobby. Those people are returning to it again.”

The store has gained a reputation, especially among local athletes, for its fundraising autograph sessions. Joss has been able to host names like Russell Wilson, Richard Sherman, Robert Turbin, Tim Lincecum and Raul Ibanez. He donates 100 percent of the proceeds from the autograph sessions to Shepherd’s Crook Ministries, a nonprofit that helps match special needs children with families who are interested in adoption.

It’s an organization that’s close to his heart, especially since Joss and his wife have adopted a daughter, Yu-Chi, from Taiwan with the help of the organization. But Yu-Chi isn’t the only adopted Joss in the family.

“When my wife and I first tried to have children, we couldn’t get pregnant,” he said. “So we looked into adoption and we ended up adopting a girl from the area. It turned out really great.”

Joss picked up his daughter on his 27th birthday and says he became a dad in a single instant.

“I remember driving home on the freeway, and I was so careful,” he said. “I was staying in the slow lane and everything. I tell her all the time, that she made me a daddy. And after that, we got pregnant. But we loved the adoption process so much and we decided we wanted to adopt more children.”

Since then, Joss and his wife has expanded their family and they now have 15 kids, eight of whom are adopted.

“That’s all of them,” Joss said, pointing to a Christmas picture of the entire family taped onto the door. “And I’m going to China to get a couple more.”

He then pulls out a coin jar that has taped on it pictures of the two kids he’s hoping to adopt in the following weeks.

“Adoption can be hard discouraging and expensive with paper work and those things, and it’s easy to say we can’t do it anymore.”

Of his eight adopted children, five of them have special needs, including cerebral palsy, down syndrome and apert syndrome. This means Joss is something of a regular at the hospitals.

“Being in the Seattle area, we’re right by Seattle Children’s Hospital, we’re right by Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital, we’re right by places that are great with dealing with this stuff,” said Joss. “I tell people around here to get a special needs kids because there’s so much that can be done for them with all these great hospitals around here.”

Joss said he is quick to encourage couples who are looking into adoption to consider children with special needs.

“I hear it all the time, ‘Your kids are so neat. We thought about adopting. We’d like to do something like that,’” he said. “Lots of people are waiting to adopt, but they generally want a healthy, perfect kid. And I want to tell people, don’t overlook these kids. It’s great to see these kids with special needs blow by whatever holds them back and still do whatever they need to do.”

While parenting more than a dozen children can be exhausting, both emotionally and financially, Joss is compelled and inspired to keep going.

“I think God put love in my heart for these kids,” he said. “They are so many of them out there. There’s been many times I thought we couldn’t anymore, financial-wise or whatever. But God always provides the need. There has been very tight times. There has been times when I wonder if I did the wrong thing. But we always end up having enough. I’m not sitting on money; I don’t have big savings. I’m depending on God everyday to provide the fees or day-to-day costs of taking care of the kids. But we have what we need.

“For several years, I thought this was the last adoption we can do. But now, I would like to save as many as I can. I’m not out to have a whole bunch of kids. They’re all precious. I love them.”