Christmas wishes

Yes, I know it's only September 25th - but that means it is only 3 months until Christmas !! Three months isn't very long when you live in a home surrounded by family, with enough food, with warmth, with love. Can you imagine how long 3 months seems to a child living in an orphanage in Eastern Europe, with no love, little warmth, and barely enough food to survive on ? Those who know me know that for the past year I have been following many adoption stories - stories of the lucky children who have been rescued, and are now living in the USA, with their new forever families. I also frequent the pages of Reece's Rainbow , and see the faces of hundreds of children, who, through no fault of their own, are destined to live in orphanages for life. Unless they can be rescued - adopted by families who see through their diagnosis, and see the child that is longing to be loved. The children with Down Syndrome, cerebral palsy, arthrogryposis, HIV, and any number of other "conditions" that deem them unworthy in their country of birth.

For those new to the world of international special needs adoption, the mission of Reece's Rainbow is to raise awareness for all the children with Down Syndrome and other special needs, in 25 countries, and to raise funds as adoption grants that help adoptive families afford the HUGE cost of adoption. Each child under the age of 10 listed on Reece's Rainbow has an individual grant - the more money they have, the greater their chance of adoption. It's a sad fact that the only barrier between these children and a happy life is money - sad, but true. Most people CAN afford to take care of a child on a day to day basis, providing them with food, shelter, schooling, therapy - LOVE. Unfortunately, most people don't have $30,000 lying around to pay for an adoption. In the world of adoption, money DOES buy happiness - and life.

Until very recently, children listed on Reece's Rainbow who were aged 6 or older had a collective grant - all money donated to these older children was pooled, and the first child adopted received the grant money - which was then set to zero. Since September 1st, that has changed - so all those older kids, aged 6 - 9 years, now have their own grants ! Unfortunately, the majority of them have ZERO in their grants. My Christmas wish ? To see that every single 6-9 year old listed on Reece's Rainbow has a little something in their grant - I want us to zero those zeros !!

There are 5 categories of 6-9 year olds on Reece's Rainbow - "Boys with Down Syndrome", "Girls with Down Syndrome", "Other Angel boys" (boys with special needs other than Down Syndrome), "Other Angel Girls", and "HIV+". PLEASE, click on one of the links, and go and help one or more of those children get rid of their zero !!!