Jean came into our Colorado office to volunteer at least one day a week for over 18 years. That’s a lot of hours — 5,616 to be exact.

She knew every one of the waiting children by name. And she exercised uncommon patience when families called with questions.

Some weeks she arrived for an additional day of work unexpectedly. “I knew there would be more phone calls than usual when I saw the sibling group on Wednesday’s Child. So I thought I’d better come in an extra day this week to help answer those phone calls,” she said.

Except for a few minutes of relaxation over lunch, Jean was focused on her purpose, scarcely putting down the phone.

Adoption parties were one of her favorite places to be. Waiting children come to these parties with their caseworkers. They’re hoping to have a good time. And they hope to meet someone who might eventually become their adoptive parents.

Prospective parents come to the parties hoping to meet children. And they arrive with lots of questions. Jean always sat at the information table giving each inquirer as much time as was needed. She knew the parents. She knew every child by name. And she surely loved the children.

A lot changed over the years. Jean adapted when we moved our offices. When I asked if driving across town to the new location would prevent her from volunteering, she reminded me that she volunteered because of the needs of the children – not because of the location of the office. Her commute was just a little longer, and she didn’t complain.

She didn’t complain when one staff member left to attend graduate school or later when another moved out of state. Instead, Jean took a deep breath, ignored plenty of chances to criticize and graciously worked beside our disorganized and organized staff alike.

Grateful for her help and for her inspiration, we said goodbye to Jean today.

Except for a coffee mug or expression of thanks, during those eighteen years her only pay check was satisfaction of knowing when another child was adopted.

Chris grew up in foster care.

Following a six-week internship with Senators and Congressmen through the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, this is what he said:

“If you were considering companies to invest in, you would not choose a company that was … almost guaranteed to fail. But you have stepped up and made that very investment.”

He was talking about the personal, financial and emotional investment in children in foster care – children who come from circumstances that strip them of opportunities to learn and grow into their potential.

They’ve missed out on team sports (who would pay for their uniforms, or drive the car pool, or cheer for them from the sidelines?). They have likely moved from one school to another, so they’ve lost the chance to develop lasting relationships with teachers, coaches and friends.

But there are people who take the risks – people who do in fact invest in the dreams of those young people.

Here at The Adoption Exchange last fiscal year families invested in the futures of 393 children from foster care through adopting. Hundreds volunteered their time, contributed financially, or dedicated their professional skills to help make the dreams of those children come true.

Barbara Killmore’s death meant that about 100 people (most of them child welfare advocates) had a chance to gather together.

And it was immediately apparent that Barbara’s life meant that the world is a safer, healthier, more loving place for lots and lots of children around the world.

One of the people Barbara supervised made everyone laugh when she told us that Barbara often stopped and told her direct reports to quit talking and get back to work because “someone is watching you.”

Deb eventually asked Barbara who was watching, and Barbara said, “I don’t know. But someone is.”

I think she was right. We watch and listen to one another all the time. In airports, at the office, when we are shopping or waiting in the lobby of our doctors’ offices, we are watching and listening.

Barbara was incredibly generous with her time and money. We were watching. And we learned from her.

We notice when people are ugly to one another, and when they are loving.

I’ve watched while:

• An adoptive dad helped his son handle his disappointment. It was clear that Santa Claus’ gift at a party was just the wrong thing.

• A mom taught her children (by adoption and by birth) that the best gifts were the gifts they made themselves. This resulted in an evening where poems were read and songs were sung to recipients of the gifts. Food was offered and accepted, hand crafted items and personalized photographs were exchanged.

• Volunteers decorated and filled hundreds of big stockings for children who are spending the holidays without families of their own.

• Board members set aside their own interests to act on behalf of The Adoption Exchange and the children and families we serve.

• An adoptive parent of a troubled young adult insists on maintaining the same cell phone number. “I’ll never change it,” she said. “When he needs me, he has to be able to find me.”

• A smile spreads across the face of a teenager who experiences the joy of doing something that just made life easier for someone else.

• The front door slams noisily and a child proudly calls through the house and into the kitchen, “Hey mom, I’m home!”

Twenty-eight years ago Mary called to volunteer the services of her daughter’s Brownie troop.

That little group of girls stuffed, licked and stamped envelopes every month to help us mail notices of waiting children to newspapers around the region.

Since then, we have been calling her.

When the city gave us 100 impounded bicycles to pass along to children, we had bicycles lining every hallway in our office. So we called Mary. She organized the project from start to finish, and put smiles on 100 little faces.

The day we discovered that stamps slid right off our Fantasy Ball invitations and we couldn’t afford to print new ones, we called Mary. She came over with a glue gun and solved the problem.

Yesterday Mary was among the 20+ volunteers at our adoption party.

These parties are fun. And they are overwhelming, also. After months of looking at video tapes and photographs, prospective parents come face-to-face with waiting children and their social workers. Everyone is a little stiff at first. A lot is at stake for the children, the parents, and for the caseworkers too.

Yesterday Mary helped prospective families from Idaho, Texas, Kansas, Wyoming and Colorado get oriented in the first, sometimes awkward, minutes as they found ways to interact with social workers and waiting children.

Click here to view photos from The Adoption Exchange’s annual adoption party at White Fence Farm

“Look at me, mom. See what I did!” How many times have you heard that from a child?

It is wonderful to have a friend, a colleague or a family member to cheer an accomplishment. We never outgrow the need for an occasional motivating acknowledgement.

Nikki accompanied Laura and me to accept a generous donation from the University Hills Rotary Club. Nikki stood before the group and told them what it meant to her to be adopted when she was a teenager.

“I had my own big family up in the stadium cheering really loud for me at my high school graduation,” she said.

I can hardly bear to think about what that graduation ceremonies are like for the young people who have no one to take pictures of them, hug them, and cheer for them.

Nikki has a little more to say. Click here to see and hear her -view Every Child Needs a Family.

Jose, an adoptive dad, is distressed about negative adoption stories in the mainstream media. You can read his article.


In my opinion adoptive parents pretty much run the gamut of normal people. A few are outstanding in just about every way. And a few are abusive.

But most are average, loving, hard working people who make a few mistakes and do a lot of things right as they nurture their children into adulthood.

Why doesn’t the law require adoptive parents to submit to regular monitoring? Because once the children are adopted, they become a legal family just like every other family. And unless something happens that brings them to the attention of the authorities, they are free to raise their children just like everyone else.

That’s not to say that post-adoption supports aren’t available. We want families to get all the services they need. Click here for post-adoption resources.

These services are enhanced by training opportunities for foster and adoptive parents.

It hurts us all when mistakes happen and children are adopted by parents who neglect or abuse them again. There are a wide range of services to help caseworkers, supervisors, administrators, lay counselors and psychotherapists improve their skills as they work with children and families.


Emily’s mom is in that largest group are those who are pretty darned good parents. Emily dropped me a note over the weekend. She is in her mid-thirties now and is celebrating her 27th “gotcha” day this week. She said she finally understands what a great mom she has. “She loves me just the way I am,” she bragged.

Last fiscal year at The Adoption Exchange 478 volunteers contributed 13,896 hours of time to help give vulnerable children a future.

And you made it happen. Last year we counted 457 adoption matches. That’s just about one adoption per volunteer.

Maybe you’ve thought about volunteering and just haven’t done it yet. If that’s the case, let me just say that there is a child who is missing the impact of your time and your love.
Click here to find out what you can do.

Pride, excitement, and tenderness pervaded their conversation, as their mutual respect grew.

Then, a few minutes later, they were on their separate ways back to work. Each had obligations to meet before the end of their work days and what obviously are the most meaningful things in their lives – their families.

One dad said, “A little child enters your life and fills a special place in your heart. A place you never even knew was empty!”

One girl said that being adopted was like finally getting to sit down after standing up for a long, long time. I think I have a tiny glimpse of what she was feeling.

When I was a girl my family traveled through Europe. It was my first visit to the continent. And my biggest memory of that trip was the confusion over our train tickets. Our tickets allowed us to board the train, but we had no seats reserved. And there were no seats available.

Despite promises of saving a night’s lodging by sleeping on the train, our travel agent hadn’t planned very well for us. We rode the train all night long without seats, and I’ll tell you we were exhausted. Even my ever-calm mother was a little out of sorts.

Multiply those feelings about a hundred thousand times, and maybe that’s a little like what foster youth are feeling.

DeWitt Jones, National Geographic photographer, noticed that most people are in a hurry. When “Old Faithful” didn’t spout at the very minute the tourists expected, some got up and walked away.

One of the keys to Jones’ remarkable photography is willingness to look around and discover what is happening in addition to what he expected. So when “Old Faithful” was late, DeWitt photographed the tourists, the sky, and the surroundings.

He stayed and he let the day unfold. Hour after hour people came, snapped the usual photographs, and moved on.

But at sunset – when the light played with the water exploding from that reliable, punctual geyser in Yellowstone, came the most magnificent moment of the day. And none of the eager tourists were there to see it. They were busy looking for the next “must-do” on their check-lists.

All alone, Jones witnessed shades of gold and blue and purple behind the sparkling eruption. His photograph of that moment became one of the most published and re-published pictures in its decade. Some people liked it so much they bought the shower curtains that were made from the photo.

That day a lot of impatient tourists came close. They had a great time in Yellowstone. But they missed a magical experience because they were too busy trying to get their expectations met.

If I could offer a suggestion to waiting parents who are distressed about the adoption that seems to not be happening, I’d suggest something simple. But it is also very difficult. Stop for a moment and drop your expectations. Look around you at what is really happening – allow yourselves to see the child or teen whose eyes stare silently back in the photographs. Maybe, just maybe, something or someone even more remarkable than what you’re expecting is waiting for you to discover its possibilities.

To caseworkers who’ve received multiple inquiries but no family seems like the perfect fit, I’d suggest the same. Stop for a moment with your hopes for the age of the parents, state of residence, or number of other children in the family. Stop and look around you at what could happen.

It is so simple. And it is difficult.