Home Study and Fundraising
Warning!! A lot has happened in six weeks. This is a long post. Enjoy.
Since our last post we have started our home study process, applied for a grant, and had a fundraising garage sale. The process for adoption is long and tedious, at times, that many people don’t understand. Heck, we didn’t understand it until we were in the middle of it. But little by little we are educating ourselves and those around us of with the process of our adoption.
The home study is where a local adoption agency (ours is out of state) makes sure that we, the potential parents, and our home are fit for a child. It involves several interviews, parenting education courses, an in-depth questionnaire, and a handful of in home visits. All of it is to better understand our motivation for adoption and insuring that our little guy will be safe. We have had our first interview, developed an education plan, and have completed the questionnaire. The rest of our home study is waiting to get started until we have saved enough to complete it.
Fundraising has been slow or fast depending on your definition. Of course we wish that we would land on the “community chest” board space of life and we would have a bank error in our favor that would take care of all of our adoption needs. Needless to say that hasn’t happened so we will continue with the slow and steady wins the race plan that has been proven in the past. There are several grants out there for potential adoptive parents. Unfortunately, all of them we can’t apply for until after our home study is completed. After lots and lots of internet research we found a grant that we could apply for before our home study. We have applied and should hear back this week or next if we will receive it. So maybe we will land on a small community chest.
This weekend we had a garage sale to fundraise for our adoption, specifically our home study. We have been advertising on social media for our friends to save things and we started collecting lots of things in our garage. Our church was gracious enough to allow us to have the sale in the church gym. They also sent out emails to ask and remind people to bring donations for us to sell. Breauna made cookie dough the days before the sale and baked and bagged them the Thursday before to sell to all of the rummage pickers. Bre’s grandpa let us borrow his little truck and her aunt had so many donations that it filled the truck and then some when we picked it up.
Friday, I left work directly for the church gym where people were already waiting to donate items to us. For several hours we had people in and out giving us things. We had several church goers and friends from work that gave to us. We were overwhelmed with donations. God blessed us tremendously. We grossly underestimated how much would be donated. We end up with things on top and below eight full tables and enough stuff that we laid things out along two walls half the length of the basketball court. There was so much that it took us until three in the morning to group things into “departments” and simply get them out of the containers that they were brought in. Outside of a few large items including a canoe (that’s right a CANOE) and one table we didn’t price a thing. It was three in the morning and we were delirious we couldn’t price correctly even if we wanted to.
After two hours of sleep, or an early morning nap if you will, we started the sale. As people came in we would tell them what the sale was benefiting, how all the stuff came to be, and that they simply needed to tell us what they wanted to pay. So many people were generous and would give us extra money because we are adopting. There was even a gentleman that bought things from us and then gathered things at his house and donated them. At the end of the day we were exhausted and with the help of some of our best friends we were able to clear the gym, donate unsold items to Goodwill, and get home by nine that night. God blessed us so much this weekend. Our sale totaled a little over $1000!! With our savings and the garage sale funds we are incredibly close to having a complete payment for our home study.
Please continue to pray for us as we go through this process. There are several milestones throughout our adoption process and we will struggle with each one because of our desire to be with our little Papita. But we know through personal sacrifice, support from our friends, family, and strangers, and God’s grace Papita will be here soon.
