Celebration of Family 2009

Last night was our Celebration of Family gala at the Crystal Tea Room. The party was well-attended and it looked like a good time was had by all. Ron and Suzanne Naples were our honorees. And Clarence and Denise McGregor Armbrister were the recipients of our Alison Award. A special touch was having Mayor Michael A. Nutter come out to share a few words about our honorees. We thank him for taking time out of his busy schedule to honor the Naples and the Armbrister's in such a personal way. Vai Sikahema, Steve Highsmith and Stan Hochman did a great job keeping the event moring along.

Again, we'd like to thanks our sponsors: Wendy's, Wawa, Wyeth, Sunoco Logistics, PECO, Independence Blue Cross, Quaker, GreenbergTraurig, Consulting Services of Princeton, Margaret G. Jacobs Charitable Trust. Our volunteers from Independence Blue Cross and Aetna did a fantastic job, thanks to each and every one of you. We also thank all those who donated items for the auctions and all those happy shoppers!

A special thanks to Chris Marrero, our photographer for the evening. He captures special events and specializes in fine art portrait photography. See more of the night's photos on our social network site.

New Adoption Community!

We here at the National Adoption Center are happy to announce that we have an online community. Go to here, or link from the Community tab on our main website. We invite all members of the adoption community -- professionals, birth & adoptive parents, potential parents, adult adoptees and all others to join our free online service.

First and foremost we want the community to be a safe and comfortable place for people to share their adoption stories. We seek to provide information, support and education for those involved in the adoption process.

We see this community as a place for conversations, with us and with the community at large. We hope ideas for new programs, or policies that we should support or problems that need to be resolved are brought to light through the community. So come join us! See you online!

"Gottahava Wawa"

In these times of great economic distress, we would like to salute one of our more generous corporate partners. Wawa, a terrific chain of mid-Atlantic convenience stores, recently contributed $110,000 to the Adoption Center. These funds represented the total dollars contributed by its New Jersey Customers via in-store collections in the 3rd Quarter of 2008.

Many of Wawa’s core values are universal:
Value People
Delight Customers
Embrace Change
Do the Right Thing
Do Things Right
Passion for Winning

In the US at this time, we all need to follow their path and value people, embrace change, do the right thing and do things right. Our country and her people would be so much better for it.

The Adoption Center recognizes Wawa for their generous support and would love to hear more stories of extraordinary giving in these extraordinary times.

Blogging for Nonprofits

Last night I had the pleasure in attending a workshop on using blogs to help nonprofits succeed. This event was organized by Philly NetSquared. It was a fun and exciting night. You'll see many of the tips I learned last night come into being here. Going forward, we are going to continue working together as a nonprofit community to help all of us reach the next level in our work.

Some changes that will be coming immediately are: We'll bring more of the stories from the field, so you can see what we do on a daily basis to help children and youths find permanent homes. And we'll be including lot's more pictures and links. If you have any tips or ideas for topics you'd like to see us cover, leave a comment.

Remember to visit our home on the web: www.adopt.org