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This Father’s Day Weekend (June 20-21), Wendy’s is helping consumers treat Dad and help foster children at the same time. Wendy’s third annual Father’s Day Frosty Weekend provides an easy and tasty way to support the cause of foster care adoption and help the more than 129,000 children in the U.S. who are waiting for the love of forever families.

During Father’s Day Weekend, Wendy’s will donate 50¢ from every Frosty product sold to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption (DTFA), a national, non-profit public charity dedicated to dramatically increasing the number of adoptions of foster children in North America. Also customers can stop by Wendy’s and donate to the cause by purchasing a Frosty pin-up for $1 each.

“The Wendy’s system is very proud to be involved with this special event that supports the cause that our founder, Dave Thomas, was most passionate about – finding a permanent and loving home for every child in the foster care system,” said Wendy’s President David Karam, who serves on the board of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.

“This is our third year for Father’s Day Frosty Weekend and we’ve set our fundraising goal at $1.7 million! We hope families will find this an enjoyable way to celebrate Father’s Day while making a difference in the lives of foster children.”

After raising more than $1 million in 2007 and over $1.5 million in 2008 during Father’s Day Frosty Weekend, Wendy’s remains committed to supporting the cause of foster care adoption in the U.S.

The money raised during the weekend will support the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption and its signature program: Wendy’s Wonderful Kids (WWK). This program is filling a critical need by funding full-time adoption professionals at local agencies in all 50 states to match parents with waiting foster care children.

The success of WWK is due to the ongoing partnership between the DTFA, the Wendy’s system of 6,600 company and franchise operated restaurants and local adoption partners. The Foundation grants funds to qualified adoption organizations, and holds the agencies accountable for achieving agreed-upon results. The Wendy’s system raises more than $7 million annually to fund the local WWK programs.

“We’re very proud of how far the program has come in such a short time. But even with all that’s been achieved, there are still thousands of children in foster care still waiting to be adopted.” said Rita Soronen, executive director of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.

“We believe Wendy’s Wonderful Kids is the solution, and that the program will become even stronger with the support of Wendy’s customers during Father’s Day Weekend.”

Join Wendy’s in supporting foster care adoption – stop by Wendy’s during Father’s Day Frosty Weekend, June 20-21, for a special treat

The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption
The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption is a non-profit 501(c)3 public charity dedicated to dramatically increasing the adoptions of the more than 150,000 children in North America’s foster care systems ready to be adopted. Created by Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas who was adopted as a child, the Foundation leads programs such as Wendy’s Wonderful Kids, which puts adoption recruiters in all 50 states and Canada to find permanent, loving families for children in the foster care system, and Adoption-Friendly Workplace, which encourages employers to offer adoption benefits to their employees. The Foundation also works with adoption advocates and officials to streamline the adoption process and make adoption more affordable for families. As the only Foundation dedicated exclusively to foster care adoption, it is driven by its founder’s simple value: Do what’s best for the child. To learn more about the Foundation’s work, please visit www.DaveThomasFoundationforAdoption.org.

Thank you to the many folks across the nation for buying a frosty and helping children who wait for adoption. Last year’s efforts raised more than $1.5 million!

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It’s no secret around here that I am a big supporter of the work The Dave Thomas Foundation For Adoption does. Now you can help and it won’t cost you a thing.

Create and send a free fathers days e-card, or choose a celebrity created one through their site Frosty Card and Wendy’s will donate 25 cents to
The Dave Thomas Foundation For Adoption.

Father’s day is this Sunday so stop by their site and send a card today!

Reposted at the Forever Parents Adoption Forums.

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In a reversal of their original decision, a judge approved Madonna’s appeal to adopt three-year-old Chifundo “Mercy” James from Malawi.

Madonna’s initial bid for adoption was rejected after a judge ruled prospective parents must live in the country 18 to 24 months.  During Fridays’ hearing, Chief Justice Lovemore Munlo called the so-called residency requirement an “old law.”

Madonna released the following statement to US Magazine through her publicist Liz Rosenberg.

“I am extremely grateful for the Supreme Court’s ruling on my application to adopt Mercy James. I am ecstatic. My family and I look forward to sharing our lives with her.”

This will be Madonna’s second child that she adopted from Malawi, the first was David, 3 in 2006.

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Tune into CBS on Tuesday, December 23
8 p.m. EST/PST or 7 p.m. CST/MST
For the 10th Annual A Home for the Holidays Special
Celebrating Foster Care Adoption!

Don’t miss this heartwarming one-hour television show!

Celebrity performers will share the stage with extraordinary American families who share their joy and their stories of foster care adoption.

This year’s show features Faith Hill and includes Tim McGraw, Jamie Foxx, Melissa Etheridge, Gavin Rossdale, Keyshia Cole, Martin Short, Kristen Chenoweth and a host of others.

There are currently half a million children in foster care in the United States; 129,000 of these children are available for adoption. Each year, A Home for the Holidays raises national awareness about this important social issue and connects waiting children with potential adoptive families.

The show is a joint project of CBS, the Children’s Action Network, Wendy’s International, Triage Productions, Goldsmith Entertainment and the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.

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I’m excited to pass along this terrific program to you, made possible by Jockey (yes, the underwear company – lol). They are working with families who adopted through foster care to provide them with post-adoption support such as respite and parent support groups. As you know, we adopted three children though foster care and often gripe on this blog about the lack of services offered to those of us who have adopted foster children.

Here’s some information from their website:

Jockey Being Family (TM) is Jockey’s corporate citizenship initiative dedicated to strengthening adoptive families for successful futures. Jockey launched Jockey Being Family (TM) in 2005. Jockey hopes to lead the charge in raising awareness of the need for expanding the availability of post-adoption services to make a difference in the lives of adoptive families. Adoption is a lifelong journey. Jockey’s goal is to provide support to adoptive families along the road, to help ensure that these adoptive families can truly be “forever families.”

Jockey International is a privately-held, family-owned, Midwest company and our brand values have long reflected a genuine commitment to families. Family and children have always been important to Jockey and adoption is an issue close to the hearts of our employees.

After months of research and careful consideration of issues where Jockey could make a significant impact on American families, we learned that post-adoption services support and resources for parents and children after the adoptions are legally finalized were scarce. Jockey also learned that no corporation was championing this important area of adoption. We realized that this was where Jockey could make the largest, most targeted impact.

We believe that by strengthening adoptive families, we can help ensure permanence for children who are awaiting a “forever family.” As a brand and company, Jockey is committed to satisfying the human need for comfort and we believe that helping families to stay strong is one of the best ways we can express and fulfill this belief.

Our mission is to engage employees in meaningful volunteer activities; raise awareness of the need for post-adoption services; and build recognition of Jockey’s corporate citizenship. Through partnerships we have developed with local and national nonprofit organizations, Jockey provides funding, employee volunteers and in-kind donations to support post-adoption services efforts and help build “forever families.”

You can help support adoption services with the purchase of this adorable bear for only $8.50. For each bear sold, Jockey will donate $3 to various adoption organizations.

I’m going to buy one for each of my kids. You can also try to win one at Dories Diaries

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Two of my children are biracial. Even though my three children are biological siblings (actually half biological siblings), one of the is white, while the other two are brown. I think because they’ve always been a multiracial sibling group and have always accepted each other as family, we’ve never had any of the situations I hear some families talk about.

Actually, the only situation that has come up regarding race happened before we adopted them. Their former foster mother once told me that my middle child (white) expressed an interest in being brown so she could look like her siblings.

We talk about the racial make-up of our family very naturally. It’s seems to be a bigger deal for other people than it is for us. I’ve said it before, but for us, it is what it is. Their biological mother and foster mother were white so for the two brown skinned children I have, having a white mother is not any different to them than what they’re used to. We live in a racially diverse neighborhood and my children see families of all colors on a daily basis. I make it a point to expose ALL of them to a wide variety of people, not just of different races, but of different religions and different lifestyles. That’s how I grew up and I want the same for my own kids.

I asked some of the members of our adoption forum for their thoughts on transracial adoption.

What has been your experience with adopting transracially?
What advice would you give someone considering adopting a child outside their race?

Three different members answered:

We have adopted seven times….of these, three were older child adoptions—of those, one has been disrupted, one is in residential, and the other is living with relatives. Of the others: they have all been infants. The first two were international, being born in Korea and Japan. The other two were born in the states……and both are Black American and adopted as babies too.

Now I’ll go out on a limb here…….

While I think it’s important for you to consider how this child will grow up, it is more important (IMO) for you to recognize how you both will feel about this child. Situations change. Neighborhoods change. (We live in a very rural area (predominately white-10 miles from the nearest college town that is more diverse), but, I can tell you that for most of their years we raised our first two within this environment, very successfully and they are Asian. Our youngest two are AA, and still toddlers. Yes, there are concerns. Yes, there will be some hurdles to overcome, but the bottom line in everything I have read is ‘how will you deal with forever being a family of color?’

Are you both prepared to cry, laugh and discuss with your child about this hard world of racism? Is there a chance that you will continually wish you had a bi-racial child, or CC baby instead? And given that this baby might be AA will you be disappointed that s/he might not have a lighter complexion, or more CC features?

One of the saddest things I have seen is when adoptive parents go into transracial adoption and continually try to make the child/baby seem ‘lighter’ try to ‘play down’ the darker complexion’ or read about the parents talking about ‘how this baby just doesn’t seem to be like ours’. These are the things I find more important. You can always find more people to be with, a new neighborhood, a different church, it’s true. But, if there is even a twinge of ‘gee, I wish s/he were lighter, or really CC’ then I think there are deeper issues here that need to be addressed before taking in any child of color.

It’s the ‘gut-level’ feeling I would be paying more attention to. After all, regardless of color, this baby/child/teen and adult will be depending on you to steer them through life, love them and be by their side. At the end of the day, it’s that relationship that will be paramount in the scheme of things, I think.

Our son is med/dark complected, full AA. We live in a 99% Caucasian area, although it’s a summer tourist area which brings in every race.

On a day-to-day basis, we don’t even think about race. We see the wonderful child that we adore. Occasionally it’ll be other people, strangers, who remind us of our differences: the nurse asking what our relationship is, the cashier at the store wondering if we’re babysitting. At school, he is one of two AA children (there are about 575 kids at that school). There is one AA teacher’s aide. None of the children at school question that James’ mom is White. None of the children bully him about race.

I did have an issue with his Kindergarten teacher, who kept giving him white paper dolls to color (took longer for him because they had to be brown), and who refused to use an opportunity to make him feel proud about AA inventors when he brought in a cotton branch. It was Black History month, and show and tell.

Culturally, I guess I’d have to say he’s being mainstreamed. His birth relatives have been asked to help in this department, and chose not to. We seek out appropriate cultural events, have added African art to our home, and study Black History together. We seek to meet other transracially adoptive families and full AA families. James is content. At this point in his life, he just wants to play and have fun. He knows that as he gets older, I’ll be there for him to research and that fact alone, whether he wants more answers or not, seems to make it a non-issue.

I can’t say we’ve really had too many issues. Most of the people we are around with Z are those who were with us through the adoption process and so already know.

In thinking about it, I think I react differently depending on whether Z is with me or not. If I’m not with Z, like at work, and people see a picture of him, I just say that he’s my son. Often, I’ll add that he’s adopted from Central America. I’m fairly open and friendly and I feel uncomfortable watching people struggle with questions when they see his obviously Mayan looks and my obviously British/German looks. So, I help them over that little “bump”. This tendency is fading though, largely because I keep forgetting he doesn’t look like me.

If I’m out with Z, though, I always just say “he’s my son” and only if people ask. I think this is because I want Z to know that he IS my son. It’s not mine or his problem if people struggle to reconcile the difference of our looks. If they ask if he’s adopted, I usually say “yep. Aren’t we blessed?” and make it clear that that is the end of it. And I really haven’t had anyone cross that imaginary line. I live about an hour from NYC and so there are a lot racially diverse families in our area. If I’m with just myself and Z, most people assume my husband is Hispanic. If we’re all together, people must figure it out on their own, because honestly, most people don’t ask.

If we are blessed to adopt T, however, I think race may be a bigger factor. I love HER, what makes her T, the piece of Christ I see in her. Her spirit, her laugh, her drive, her independence, her lovableness. But she IS black and I am whiter than white. I don’t know the FIRST thing about black hair, black skin care, black culture. And, trust me, no one in my friends or family does, either. lol I’m honestly not sure how much of an issue it will be. I know my father will faint if it turns out I am the mother to an African American child, but I also know he is a loving grandfather to Z and I NEVER though he would accept an Hispanic grandson. I think that how big an issue race is will be determined by T herself. If it’s a big deal to her, it will be a big deal to the family. I certainly plan on encouraging her to understand her culture and to celebrate it and the wonderful contributions that have been made all over the world by Africans/African-Americans. Whether or not she will need more than this, I don’t know. Again, we live in a fairly diverse area. Bi-racial couples and children are not a huge issue here. Also, if we do adopt T, I know her foster mother and sister and the women of her foster mother’s church all love her very much and would most likely be willing to remain strong influences in her life as she grows into her own special woman. That’s my hope anyway :pink:

Advice for others? I don’t know, since I never anticipated adopting transracially. The only thing I can say for sure is, with both my completed adoption and one that doesn’t seem like it will EVER get off the ground one way or the other, the skin color was not even a consideration. Once I “fell in love”, I was in love and their skin color didn’t matter any more than their hair color, eye color, nose size or foot size. I just love my son as my son and I know I would love T as my daughter and the rest is just stuff that we will work through as it comes.

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Here is the fifth installment of the adoption interviews we’ve been doing with parents who’ve adopted and those who are still in the process. If you’d like to be included, please leave a comment and I’ll send you the information.

This one is from Linny, who is the co-administrator at our adoption forum.

People decide to adopt for many different reasons. What led you to adoption?

As a young child I knew I wanted to adopt. There was one TV commercial that played a lot when I was very young, and that made me really curious about adoption. My feelings that there are already too many people on the planet and many children/babies awaiting parents played a part in this. And finally, knowing that our family had some genetic issues (early onset of severe arthritis, diabetes) I didn’t feel were fair to pass on to biological children, played a part in wanting to adopt and choosing it as a first option.

What type of adoption(s) are you/did you pursue (international, siblings, transracial, open, etc)?

My husband and I adopted from agencies while we lived overseas in Okinawa, Japan. Our first two babies were born in Korea and Japan. Years later, we adopted older children through the foster care system—three CC boys in two separate adoptions. Years after that, we returned to domestic infant adoption and have adopted three AA babies in three separate adoptions over the last six years.

Was it what you had intended to pursue all along? Was the process what you thought it would be?

Adopting internationally was something we took advantage of because we lived overseas. We went with adoption through the foster system, because, frankly, we felt we couldn’t afford to adopt any other way (we were wrong)…and we were always up front about this. We went back to domestic, transracial infant adoption, because we found out that it WAS possible to afford this type of adoption, as well as being totally disenchanted with older child adoption from the problems we encountered. Was it as we expected? The process: Ridiculously long and redundant by having to have tons of homestudies—over the years— by different agencies, that really could have been ‘copied’ to a great degree and simply added to. Was it as we expected? Adoption in general: Older child adoption–never as we had hoped. Mainly ‘nightmarish’ in our experiences. Infant adoption—wonderful.

What obstacles, if any, are you/did you face along the way? How did you overcome them?

Our experiences in older child adoption would take a very long time to write about and explain in entirety. Let’s just say that we were much too gullible in taking the first placement through an agency, and trusted the system far too much. In a nutshell, the first older child was fraudulently presented to us and vital information was withheld from us what would have made a huge difference in our decision to adopt him.

After four years and living with a child that presented dangerous behaviors to himself and others—our first older adopted child went into residential. After three years there, he had to be moved (request of the facility because he was too impulsive and aggressive) to another facility. After three years at the next facility, he was moved to yet, another facility where he resides to this day. He is now an adult and will, at some point, be able to walk out. He has changed in his behaviors–very, very little from the point we knew him at six years of age.

The next two older children lived with us for almost seven years until one decided to engage in very dangerous and illegal behaviors. He was a danger to our other children and was charged, arrested and convicted. We refused to allow him to come back into our home to endanger the younger children. We were prepared to separate our family if need be; in order to keep the younger children safe.

After many months and court battles (and a lot of $$ for our own attorney), the system realized he was dangerous and quite likely to behave this way again. They allowed us to sign him back over; and within one month, he went into a specialized residential facility. The third older child was so traumatized by the actions of the older one, he went to live part time with relatives. This part-time turned into full time and hence, he is adopted by these relatives. We continue to see him frequently and he is doing alright. We overcame the above obstacles with a lot of Faith in the Lord, support from relatives, counselors and friends. The last event (mentioned above) took a real toll that has taken a couple of years to really re-coup.

Do/did you have the support of family and friends during your adoption journey? If not, how did it affect you? If yes, how important was it to you?

Yes, we had support from friends and family—especially with the first two adoptions. In adopting through the system, there were several of each who felt we were taking a big risk (and sadly, they were correct). In deciding to adopt infants again…..our parents were hesitant, thinking we were too old and had been through enough emotionally. However, when we brought our babies home, they were quite happy for us and have been involved with our children.

Generally speaking, if you could change something about adoption or how it is perceived, what would it be and why? Do you think that change will ever come to be?

I think the process is ridiculously redundant. There are a lot of steps that overlap and take too much time. I think once a homestudy is performed by one agency, it is silly for the state to have to completely re-do another, instead of simply updating the material that’s already been written about!
I feel that too many adoptive couples—as well as society at large, believe adoption is ‘less than’ birth. I think our society continues to believe that ‘adoption’ is something that should only be perused once fertility is ruled out. I think this is too narrow minded. And, I believe that some agencies don’t interview and screen their hopeful adoptive couples well enough before allowing them to adopt—especially when the couple chooses to adopt transracially.

Do I think these changes will ever come to be? No. Our society values ‘birth’ too much, having the mindset that ‘when one gives birth, one is automatically a good parent’. This is why the foster care system children languish too long before permanency is found. I also think that too many insurance companies pay for extensive infertility treatments and such; but offer little to nothing for the couple who incur thousands of dollars to adopt. I find this unfair to adoptive couples…and not sure so much $$ should be applied for infertility treatments either.

Finally, I think adoption is too much of a business in money making for the wrong people and wrong reasons. In my thinking, there should/would be no such thing as ‘match money’ from the hopeful adoptive couple. Fees would only be paid for the actual paperwork, no living expenses for any birthparents, and absolutely no money paid until the baby was completely freed for adoption. With this, I think a lot of pressure to birthparents and broken hearts from the same and adoptive couples would be greatly reduced.

As the parent (or parent-to-be) of an adoptee/s, what challenges do you think they will face as they grow up? Will life be easier for them than adoptees before them? How will you help them with any issues that they may face?

Our first baby was adopted over 25yrs ago. Our last baby came to us over six months ago. The conversations, beliefs and feelings are the same. We think any challenges adopted individuals face have a lot to do with the attitudes and feelings the adoptive parents have set before ‘them’ while they were growing up. We’ve always told our children they were adopted long before they could even understand what the word meant. We’ve always told them that when they are adults, they are free to search and seek out to meet any biological connections. We’ve always told them that we will give any assistance to help them connect with these people. And finally, the most spoken phrase and attitude we’ve expressed to our children is that ‘Adoption is just as—if not more special and important—than being birthed.’

Parenting is parenting. Good parenting is good parenting. If a couple perceive adoption as second best, I fear they will treat their adopted children as such. I think if they value and see their adopted child as a child ‘just as important, if not more so, than birthed’….then that child will more than likely grow up to be self-confident and secure concerning their perspective on ‘being adopted’.

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What role does race play in adoption? Not the race of the child, but rather the race of the person or couple who is adopting. Has your race ever been a factor (not necessarily in a negative way either) in your adoption process?

I asked this question at our adoption forums and I’ll open it up to our blog visitors as well. Feel free to answer in a comment here, or on your own blog. If you answer at your blog, let me know in a comment here so I can link to your answer.

Here are the thoughts of three of our adoption forum members;

2: I’ve written in posts before about how our own race (both seemingly Caucasian) was a factor in our adoption journey. Early on……when we first started the adoption process, our race was an issue—and not a good one, as far as we were concerned. In 1979……..going into an adoption agency—the ONLY adoption agency— in Okinawa,Japan, and telling the caseworker conducting our homestudy that we really wanted to adopt a baby who was ‘Black/Okinawan’……was enough to literally make her drop her pen to the floor and say to us:

“YOU would be WILLING to adopt a black child?!?!?!?!?”
“Yes.”, we said.

And to that, the caseworker said that this would have to go in front of their agency board. When we returned several days later for the next interview, she told us:

“We’ve discussed this and concluded that Mr. X (my husband)…..while your complexion is darker; Mrs. X (that was me), you are much to fair complected to adopt a black child.”

So, what did this agency do? They allowed us to adopt—either through Korea, the Philippines, or wait for a baby from Okinawa (which was a very long wait).
We chose Korea; and one of the big factors was because adopting through Korea meant a shorter wait. However, did they really think that Korean baby would look any MORE like US…than any other ‘un-white baby’??? :shrug I don’t understand it any better now, than I did back then. And my husband would say the same.

We had to wait 12 months before we could apply to adopt again. We did. As soon as the one year mark came, we made an appointment with the agency to adopt another baby. We already knew we would want another Asian baby, simply because we felt our first child would feel some sort of bond by having another ‘non-white’ person in the family. We sat with another caseworker to update the home study. Her comment?

“…of course NOW you’ll want a white baby, won’t you???!!!” (grinning with anticipation)
“No, we want to adopt another Asian baby.”

Needless to say, they still didn’t get it.

We were then told we didn’t have enough time left on the island (my husband was Air Force), and would have to extend our stay there because the waiting list was so long. (Frankly, I don’t remember why we didn’t go through Korea again, except that it would take the extended time to do so.) We told the agency we’d think about it. As we left the agency, I told my husband that there just had to be another way. There was. I was finishing my bachelor’s degree while we lived on the island, and through connections there, we actually found our next baby. That’s another story; and a good one at that. :nod

In the end, we flew home on the date we were originally supposed to…without extended time. We left with two babies….one that was 2yrs old; the other that was 8months old. One born in Korea; the other born in Japan. We’ve had other negative scenarios concerning our race and adoption; but I believe these were the worst ones of all.

By the way, we’ve gone on to adopt three more babies. All African American.

3: As an interracial (AA/CC) couple, it seemed to us that adoption was always a very short wait. Even though we are not a young couple (second marriage for both of us), we never waited more than a couple of months for a placement and sometimes weren’t waiting at all, but were called or presented with situations.

Our son’s Caucasian foster parents, who live in Michigan, had a very difficult time with the adoption of their daughter 25 years ago. She has Down Syndrome and is biracial. She was one of many, many infants placed in this outstanding foster home. Because she had a heart condition, they were told she likely would not live through heart surgery. Foster mom fed her with an eye dropper to get her strong enough for surgery, loved and nursed her through two surgeries. When she became healthy, the foster parents decided that, although they had never desired to adopt any of their foster children, they were so bonded with this child, they requested to adopt her. ALL OF THE SUDDEN, the agency said there was a black couple who wanted to adopt her. They virtually DUG UP a family to adopt this child because they were so against interracial adoption. Foster family got the ACLU involved, were on numerous talk shows, created their own alliance against racial preference in adoption, and WON THE CASE. Their daughter is now nearly 24 and doing very well.

Things have come a long way, but I still hear of cases where biases are held by agencies/social workers regarding race in adoption.

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