Apologies all around for our month-long hiatus from blogging, our plates have been really full and getting piled up on with ARD/IEP (only teachers can relate) meetings, end of year testing, and so on... our lives as teachers towards the end of the school year is quite overwhelming! We are looking forward to June 6th when our summer officially begins! Hooray! By then, we'll be able to focus on our adoption process with paperwork for our dossier wrap-up.
Our adoption agency just informed us a while ago that they will be affiliated with another orphanage in Colombia, which is a great opportunity for us because they have seen Deaf children from there many times in the past. Fingers crossed. Until then, our focus is to get in line for ICBF (Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar) approval. This approval is in order to speed up the process of getting matched to a potential child. Other than this, there's nothing else new to report at this moment.
We want to update you on our two recent fundraisers with Subsidy Shades and Noonday Collection; both fundraisers were a success! THANK YOU!
For Subsidy Shades, we raised $152.87; Noonday Collection $216. Each penny earned, counts! :)
We will have another T-shirt drive in June and wanted to reveal the shirt design now! All proceeds will go towards our adoption to bring our little Sipek home someday! We want to give special thanks to Jennifer Cavalcanti for her innovative design and support towards our adoption process! You can see that the Texas and Colombia flags are incorporated in the heart sign; how cool is that?! We will share further information regarding the T-shirt drive soon.
Here's the last, but not least news about Brooke's Bits & Pieces via Etsy shop and there will be new items coming soon this summer! We will keep you informed!
We are a part of a Yahoo! adoption discussion group, which covers many adoption-related discussions and wanted to share some fundraising ideas for you all who are interested in adopting. Check out the links at the bottom of this blog. We want to give you an honest heads up that fundraising isn't easy, but requires a full effort to raise funds for an adoption. Why, you may ask? It depends on how clear you are on your mission behind the fundraiser and how to reach a larger community to support your mission. Using social media is one thing, but you really need to share your story out there to increase visbility and supporters. We know we are not like the Burdens family who raised $35k in 4 amazing months. Patience and persistence will pay off for us. We will reach our goal someday. Currently, we have approximately $12-15k (we're about halfway) left to pay our entire adoption. We applied for two adoption grants a while ago and one of the grants will be reviewed soon in June... hopefully, we will get lucky with a grant! Fingers crossed.
Someone contacted us regarding a community fundraising event (similar to crowd-funding) where our other supporters fundraise for us. It takes a village to make a huge difference, ultimately. Admittedly, we are... let's say, too humble or modest to ask for volunteers because of one main reason- we are not even sure if volunteers out there are willing to put the effort in gathering funds for us- especially for those who do not really know us. However, we will try and take a leap of faith in this to see what happens. We will create a Facebook page for volunteers by asking close friends/families all over America to share ideas on how everybody could contribute to the funding such as hosting a bake sale, selling handmade items, hosting a community spaghetti dinner, running a lemonade stand, etc. To assure the volunteers that their efforts will be greatly appreciated and for us to show you that our purpose is legit and credible; the donations will be directly donated to our adoption agency or via AdoptTogether. Your honest thoughts? Feel free to comment below. We want positive feedbacks, please. We are constantly seeking innovative ways to raise funds.
For prospective adoptive families, here are some fundraiser ideas:
http://showhope.org/3-ways-fundraise-adoption/
http://yestoadoption.blogspot.com/2010/12/adoption-fundraising-ideas.html
http://www.addingaburden.com/2012/08/adoption-fundraising-advice.html
http://whenatlast.com/2013/01/07/fundraising/
http://mycrazyadoption.org/crazy-fundraiser-for-a-mission-trip/
http://mercyfoundministries.com/blog/10creativefundraisingideas/
We personally would love to do all those awesome ideas, but as just two people to work, we cannot do them all! If we were able to grow 20 more arms and hands, that might work. Where's the genie in a bottle to grant us a wish? :)
We promise to update as soon as we are done with the school year!
Much love,
Brooke & Brian
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