How Can We help?

Adoption Update

 

Today Greg and I set up a fund or an account through our credit union specifically for our adoption.  When people donate on our adoption site on youcaring.com (http://www.youcaring.com/adoption-fundraiser/bringing-baby-owens-home/181884) it will be deposited into this account. Whenever we get any money for the adoption, it will go into this specific account earmarked just for adoption expenses.

Large Utility Tote: Month of June Special!

Tomorrow June 1^st, we kick off our first official fundraiser for the adoption. Shopt2Adopt with Thirty One gifts. I am pretty excited for this fundraiser because while we are raising money for our adoption we will also be able to pay it forward as well. See we will get 25% of all sales for the adoption. Any hostesses gifts or incentive earned will be donated to Lifetime Adoption, for the birth moms. Every birth mom gets a hospital bag that they stock with toiletries, and the hostess incentives earned on this fundraiser will be donated to that. You can order from this Fundraiser from June 1-15^th, by going to www.mythirtyone.com/annieowens then clicking on my parties and then Shop2Adopt. There is a great sale on our Large Utility Totes going on in the month of June including the deluxe utility tote. Get a Large Utility tote for $10 when you spend $35, get the deluxe for $25.

June 22^nd we will be having a bake sale at our church Celebration after both church services. We are looking for donations of baked goods such as cookies, bars, cupcakes, pretzels, and other goodies. You can email us at owensclan02@gmail.com if you would like to donate to this, message Annie or Greg on Facebook, or text us.

We are also in the works of planning a benefit with silent auction as well. The date for this will be announced. Again if you would like to donate an item or basket for this please email us, message, or text us. Perhaps you have a craft you are good at that we can auction off, or have a service to offer.  We may also incorporate vendors such as Lia Sophia, Thirty One, and others for booths.

Lastly we are in the process of going through everything we own and getting a rummage sale ready. The proceeds from this will again go towards the adoption. If you have anything you would like to get rid of and wouldn’t mind donating it to us so we can sell let us know!

Our goal for these fundraisers is to raise $12,000. This would pay for our down payment for adoption fees $7500 of $19,500, our home study fees of $3000. And have $1500 towards legal fees. This will help get the ball rolling. In addition to that once our home study is approved we can start applying for adoption grants, and there are several we will be applying for. Including one directly through Lifetime Adoption. In addition to the $12,000 we will need at least another $17000. The remaining 12,000 in fees, another 3500 in legal fees, and we are budgeting about 2000 for travel fees.  

To get all that money together, besides the fundraisers we are planning, we are hoping to get at least two or three substantial grants, Greg is looking for a part time job to earn some extra money, Annie is looking at starting a store on Etsy to sell some crafts. We are consistently looking for ways to reduce our spending and increase our income, so if you have ideas in regard to this, please let us know. We don’t have cable which is a huge savings, we have basic phone and internet packages, and we are starting to coupon. I really need lessons on this extreme couponing I keep hearing about.  Of course Annie still has her thirty one, photography, and graphic design.

Soph is in on this as well, today she said she is going to sell her Barbie’s to pay for her brother AND sister. (we are adopting ONE baby) We told her that was very nice, and sweet, but she can keep her Barbies! She also volunteered Aunt Emily to help her make bracelets to sell.

In case you haven’t seen, we made a specific Facebook group for “Bringing Baby Owens Home” We post updates, fundraising ideas, etc on this group. To be included you need to request it. Either by messaging Greg or I, or asking on Facebook.

Thank you so much for the ones who have donated so far. I can not tell you how much we appreciate it. No words could express the gratitude. To the ones that have been praying for us, have offered other sorts of help thank you.

I know everyone wants to help, but some are unsure how they can help, time, distance, or money seems to be prohibiting them from doing so. Other ways you can help:

1.)    Pray. I really can’t stress this enough. We need this adoption to be lifted up in prayers. I know we have said before we need prayers for funding, prayers for a successful match, prayers for us, for the birth mom, for the baby. I mean it. Prayers prayers prayers! I am trying to put together a list of prayers for adoptions, and encouraging scripture for this as well. If there   is a favorite versus, or scripture please share with us.

2.)    Do you craft? Have an amazing Photography eye? Can tell short stories? Get your crafts together, take pictures of them, and do your own online auction. Start Auction prices out so they include the cost of the material and a five dollar shipping cost add in. Photography buff, take some of your favorite prints and mount them real nice, sell prints of them. (Annie is considering doing this with some photos from Door County and Mackinac Island.) Again setting up an online store, or auction would work nice. Make sure to explain money raise will be going to benefit.

3.)    Have a service you can offer? Donate the service.

4.)    Coupon for us. We will start stock piling baby items, especially diapers, if you see a coupon for diapers let us know about it so we can get in on the deal.

5.)                            Have old baby things such as clothes, burp rags, blankets? Consider donating them to the baby for when the baby comes home. We will need lots of this stuff. While we did foster three babies, all our baby items have either went home with the child, given to nieces or nephews, dontated, or sold.

6.)                            Have I mentioned pray for the adoption? Pray for us? Pray. Prayer is powerful. I am hoping to set sometimes up when we can hold prayer sessions, where everyone stops what they are doing and says a quick prayers on our behalf.

7.)                            Be encouraging. Some days are really rough, keep that in mind. Sometimes we may want to talk a lot about it, where other times we just want to stay mum. Be understanding with it.

8.)                            Be a researcher- Annie has this amazing group of “cysters” women who are also affected by PCOS. We’ve been buddies along time, and we are pretty supportive of each other. As soon as we announced our intent to adopt, they had several grants and the information websites, they had adoption resources. It was a great way to show support with out spending a dime, and it was helpful. Share your ideas.

9.)                            Share, Share, Share. Share our adoption page, share our blog posts, share our fundraising information. Share our story.  I will be posting signs and flyers for fundraisers, share them. Print them out and post in church, grocery stores, gas stations. From Wisconsin to Texas, Virginia to Alaska, anyone can order thirty-one. Once our craft store is up and running, any one will be able to order from there.  

10.)                         Lastly, Pray! What? I mentioned it twice before? Yes I did. Its that important!