touched by adoption

How did it go

So many people are asking ........ "How did it go"? Sorry it is taking awhile but oh my we are exhausted but with that said we are also thrilled to say......................it was a huge success. The past 3 months of gathering donated items was not exactly easy. It was clean, tag/price, find a place to store, clean, tag/price, find a place to store and repeat and repeat and repeat 1,000 + times. It was pure and utter craziness at times BUT look what happened. We raised a boatload of money and all for soul sister waiting China. So many people helped it was awesome. SOOOO SOOOOO awesome! It brings tears to my eyes to think about how many hands were involved and lets lay it all out there...................WE NEVER COULD HAVE DONE IT WITHOUT ALL OF YOU! Our "dreaming of a sister" fundraising tag sale raised $5,500.00! THANK YOU just does not feel like enough but THANK YOU!
pictures can not possibly show you how much stuff we had but here are a few:

full, busy and excitied

Just thought we would say hello and tell everyone we are busy busy getting ready for the big "dreaming of a sister" fundraiser yard sale.  Our home is full (OK overstuffed really) but how cool is that people have been so generous with donation items.  We are excited for the event (OK tired) and excited.  Thank you everyone.  Come shop or send shoppers you may know.  We will keep you informed on how it goes.  Hope it is a big hit!!

how is our tag sale fundraiser going

Some people have asked .......how our tag sale fundraiser is going?  Well we are truly blown away with the kind, generous, caring people in our lives.  Some lifelong friends, some new friends, some great family and some even strangers.  So many have gotten involved and  we thank everyone for making this fundraiser amazing!

**We will most likely make October 1st our date for the end of tag sale item donations. It has been amazing and we have tons to price/tag etc... Amazing donations!

Now we need people to shop shop shop.  Please pass along the dates of our tag/yard/bake sale:

Friday, October 21st 8am – 4pm

Saturday, October 22nd 8am – 4pm
Sunday, October 23rd 8am – 2pm

Fundraiser tag sale DATE

We have picked a weekend for our “Dreaming of a sister” fundraiser tag sale!

Friday, October 21st            8am – 4pm

Saturday, October 22nd       8am – 4pm
Sunday, October 23rd          8am – 2pm

If you would like to donate items to be sold please contact us to pick them up (e-mail us, post a comment on our blog or call us).

Please come join us if you would like to purchase some items that weekend.

Others neighbors are also planning tag sales that weekend and we are planning some other fun events for the weekend so stop by!

Lastly tables and easy up type cover tents are needed if anyone has any they could loan to us for the weekend that would be so helpful. THANK YOU!

1st post - BIG NEWS - why fundraise

We are taking a "Flying Leap of Faith" and we invite you to join us!  We have decided to bring a sister home to Laney!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is time to take big steps to making our dreams come true BUT we cannot do it without you!  

Our adoption process with Laney took almost 4 years!!  Her sister will probably be home with us MUCH SOONER than that long wait.  Maybe even within 12 months!  The good news is sooner rather than later a little girl will be out of the orphanage, into our loving arms and she will have a family. The challenge... this good news of sooner leaves A LOT less time to save all the money we need. We do have faith we will be able to do what we need to bring her home. One of the ways we are doing this is by putting our faith into this very letter. Truth is… we dislike fundraising. But, we know, in this case, that we must swallow our pride and have the courage to ask others for help.  So, in addition to scrimping and saving, we are dollar by dollar fundraising our way to Laney’s sister.  So would you consider being a part of something great?  As we gear up for some fundraising events?

You may ask why all this fundraising? Some might say “geez, they want to adopt but they can’t afford the adoption”? It’s a fair question… so let us try to answer.  Yes… God has set it on our hearts to adopt a sister for Laney. We don’t know her yet, but we dream of her and everyday she is growing in our hearts. We know this is the plan for our family!  But, not too many people have the money sitting in their bank account to cover the cost of adoption. Did you know adoption costs between
Twenty to Thirty Thousand Dollars!!! Many people ask … "Why does it cost so much?" Believe us we wish it didn’t but wow it sure does! You must pay for so many services. The adoption agency is a service that makes sure you have the mounds and mounds of paperwork just perfect for travel to China, they arrange travel, they schedule all the government appointments, they have staff to help while we are there. We pay the Chinese government fees for all the paperwork they must process. We pay the US government fees for immigration processing, home studies, fingerprints, and tons of forms. Notarizations, certifications, authentications, social workers, agency fees, dossier fees, pre placement fees, government fees and post placement fees. And the list goes on and on.  We hope this helps people understand. And we hope everyone knows that we are SO grateful for every person, every family, and every friend that helps along on this journey.

SO we ask you again......Would you consider being a part of something great? Join us for our first fundraising event:  A huge tag sale for a cause! 

We are working on putting together a giant tag sale to help bring Laney’s sister home to her forever family.  We have opened a designated account solely for adoption (Thank you Jo for the 1^st deposit into this account J)!  This account will be used solely to reach the goal of bringing Laney’s sister home.

SO ARE YOU READY TO DO SOME SUMMER CLEANING? Do you want to clean out, get rid of, simplify things; well you can do all that while helping our little girl come home.  Please consider these things:

·          Gather all the things you were considering selling, trading, donating or tossing.  Furniture, toys, clothes, household items, electronics (anything really that is in decent selling condition). Make a pile and set it aside. We will make it easy! Drop it off or we can arrange to pick it up and feel good about having a hand in making family dreams come true!  We will sell all these items at a giant tag sale later this fall and all the proceeds will go to helping bring Laney’s sister home.

Thank you to those who are already working on:
 ·         selling items on Craig’s list and donating a portion of the proceeds.
 ·         selling items at consignment stores and donating a portion of the proceeds.
 ·         selling old gold jewelry they no longer wear and donating a portion of the proceeds.

 ·         Having tag sales in other states and donating a portion of the proceeds.

We created this very fundraising blog and it will be updated with events and information and it even has a way to donate securely!

We have wonderful family and friends working on future fundraisers also.  More to come on events like:
·         Eat out fundraiser
·         Puzzle fundraiser
·         Benefit show fundraiser
·         Bake sale fundraiser
·         Oh and any other fundraiser ideas are welcome!

If we missed any family, friends, coworkers, neighbors please share this.

Lastly thank you for taking the time to consider helping make dreams come true.

Mark, Kelly, Laney (Maui & Tiki too)

Please e-mail, post a comment on our blog or call us if you have any questions.