Project Report
| Sep 19, 2017
Inspired to "Host" Couple Finds Family for Sisters
![Yazury, Michael, Joseph, Janel, Ailen, & Heidi.]()
Yazury, Michael, Joseph, Janel, Ailen, & Heidi.
What if you want to help orphaned kids find a family, but you can’t be that family yourself? That was Janel’s question. She’d been a social worker for nearly 10 years. She’d seen and felt the need for all kids to grow up in a caring family. But when she and her husband had their own small kids, it didn’t seem the right time to adopt.
The urge to adopt didn’t go away, however, and in 2012, Janel learned about Kidsave’s Summer Miracles program that brings older orphans from Colombia to the US for a month-long stay with “host” families. She thought, “That’s the ticket! We can still be part of children’s lives without adoption.” The month-long visit offers these children many opportunities to meet families interested in adoption.
Host families may or may not be interested in adoption, but they commit to doing all they can to help find a great family for these youth. With their own biological kids now 4- and 7-year-olds, Janel felt like they could host. She and her husband Michael signed up and hosted Colombian sisters Ailen (11) and Yazury (13) in July.
What surprised Janel was the help Kidsave gave in finding an adoptive family. “I thought I would feel isolated and have this huge responsibility to find a family to adopt them. But we jumped onto a wheel that was already rolling -- Kidsave is on top of it! The strategies Kidsave uses [to help find good families] are successful. We introduced them to as many people as we could but, in the end, Kidsave found the couple that is going to adopt them. We thought the load would be on our shoulders, but Kidsave carried most of the load.”
“Another great discovery was how close the Kidsave host families became and how they helped each other. We spent so much time with Kidsave staff and families that month and we developed this incredible network of friends.” Each community of host families works together to help each other and to raise the funds to cover a portion of the expenses. Kidsave raises funds to cover the rest.
Ailen and Yazury are in the process of being adopted but Janel and Michael are already planning to host again next year… and when their own kids are the right age, to “host to adopt” -- not just to advocate.
![A peaceful end to a busy day!]()
A peaceful end to a busy day!
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