How can you help?

Day 63 approved and waiting for our baby through the miracle of adoption

Okay people! I cannot even count how many of you have asked us how you can help with our adoption "finding" efforts. Well, I have a GREAT way that you can help us!

First of all, let me just address the financial facts of adoption bluntly. You all know we aren't wealthy. Far from it, actually. And adoption is extraordinarily expensive. Maybe you're wondering how expensive exactly. Let's just say that I have received at least 20 birth mother referrals in the past two months that we have had to pass up because they exceeded our financial ability by AT LEAST eight or nine THOUSAND dollars. That means they all cost over $18,000.00. (If you're one of those wealthy adoptive couples who can afford that much, send me a comment with you're email and I'll pass along the contact information!)

So, let me give you a breakdown of our expected expenses.
-LDSFS fee: $4,000.00
-Matching agency fee: $4,500.00
-Attorney's/legal fees: $250-$1,000.00
-Possible cost of travel: $1,000.00
-Miscellaneous expenses: $250.00
GRAND TOTAL: $10,750.00

We have already been able to save up $6,000.00 on our own. We will continue working and saving to contribute as much as possible. But we are obviously far short of our target. So, the second Saturday in May we are going to be holding an adoption fundraiser yard sale.

We know that not all of you can donate cold hard cash to us. (Although, if you can we would really appreciate ANY amount you could spare.) We read the news, we know the economy is bad right now and everybody is tightening their belts. But, we know that most if not all of you can donate items to our yard sale. Look around your house, is there anything you aren't using anymore that you're just going to donate to D.I. or Goodwill anyway? Instead, let us take those items off your hands and try to sell them! Any items that we can't sell will be donated to D.I. or Goodwill.

So I know some of you are thinking, "Well, I would love to help you out, but I live very far away." My thinking is that you could hold an adoption fundraiser yard sale of your own. Get your Relief Society, Priesthood, Young Men, Young Women, Primary, your family, your friends, your neighbors involved! If you decide to do this, let me know in an email with your home address at maloneandbrittanyadopt@gmail.com and we will send you a bunch of our pass-along cards to give out at your yard sale. I know this is asking for some real effort from all of you. But we really do need the help.

You may be wondering what we will do with any extra money that we may raise. Here's the really beautiful part. We will "pay it forward." We know of a bunch of adoptive couples who are in the same boat as us: they would give anything to have a baby, but they just don't have enough money yet. We will GIVE that money away to an adoptive couple or two who really need it. We may or may not actually end up using the matching agency. That really just depends on whether or not we can match with a birth mother on our own using referrals or LDSFS. (Yep, your spreading the word is REALLY that important! It could save us $4,500.00!) So, that would mean we would be able to give away $4,500.00. We would ask them to do the same as us, try to raise as much money on their own as possible, and then if they had extra money, give it away to another adoptive couple.

Some of you out there have already helped us a TON. We thank you for that. We will be posting a list of all the people and items/money that have been donated. So, if you wish to remain anonymous, send me an email.

We know that with your help, this fundraising effort can be a HUGE success. We have seen it happen for some adoption friends of ours who adopted two adorable boys from Ghana. Last fall they held two yard sales that raised $2,957.56! How amazing is that!?!

So go ahead, talk about this yard sale on your own blogs. And if you have questions or comments, send me that email! We're excited to see how this works out!