There’s a really fun way to bring the Easter Bunny to your home and to support a worthwhile cause in the process. Egg My Yard (in cooperation with the Bunny himself) will fill your yard with treat-filled eggs and donate hundred percent of the proceeds to Dream4Adoption.
This creative holiday idea was the brainchild of Kim Ashbrook, Director at Dream4Adoption. The annual fundraiser helps support families in the process of adoption, something near and dear to Ashbrook’s heart.
“The organization was founded in 2017 as we awaited the adoption of our daughter,” she said. “The amount of help received from others was overwhelming, and that provided the inspiration to form a charity that would assist and inspire others to help a child find their forever home.” The goal was to be open to anyone who could legally be approved to adopt.
Dream4Adoption’s first client was the Morrow family. Erin and Zawadi Morrow had one birth child and felt called to adopt, and for years they kept a jar for loose change that they labeled “Adoption Change.” As Zawadi says, it was never going to be the perfect time to adopt, so they prayed and pushed forward, knowing that God would provide. Despite the fact that they did not meet China’s criteria to adopt (their birth child was six months shy of meeting the 3-year-old requirement), they pursued a blond-haired Chinese girl. “Albinism can be a stigma in the Chinese culture, so I actually saw this girl’s picture twice over a year’s period, and she hadn’t been adopted,” said Erin. “When I saw it the second time, I said, ‘This is our daughter.’” Their application was miraculously approved, but now they had to raise the tens of thousands of dollars needed to pay for the adoption.
“God’s got this,” said Zawadi. “It will be fun to see how God provides.”
Provide He did, in part by bringing together the Morrow family and the newly formed Dream4Adoption. A year later, the family flew to China to meet their daughter Kavira on Thanksgiving Day, 2018. As Erin said, “I was ready to trade paperwork for hugs.”
Ashbrook says that the Morrow family was the inspiration that was needed for Dream4Adoption to continue to push forward and work hard to support other families that want to adopt. “Adoption is the greatest love, and far too often it is overlooked. Estimates state that over 100 million children are in foster care or orphanages around the world. Once Dream4Adoption got rolling, we found out how under-represented adoption had become, and it sparked this little idea that maybe Dream4Adoption could help lead the way and bring adoption to the forefront where we think it truly belongs.”
Egg My Yard serves as a fundraiser for the organization, providing about $5,000 a year to the program for adopting families. Ashbrook said, “Dream4Adoption has extremely low expenses compared to the overwhelming majority of charities, and our family donates a lot of time and has donated more money than we wish to think about to keep the organization going forward.”
Like many organizations, this one has also suffered in the wake of the pandemic and lower donations on average. The fundraiser is crucial because since the inception of the adoption assistance program, Dream4Adoption has granted over $21,000 to families in the adoption process.
Ashbrook points out that everyone who works with Dream4Adoption is a volunteer, and no one receives pay. They do everything they can, she says, to minimize costs so they can benefit as many qualified applicants as possible. “The goal is to be able to cover home study costs for each family that shows the need for financial assistance. And as an added security, Dream4Adoption reaches out to agencies, lawyers and or home study providers to help verify the applicants to ensure that the monies will be going toward the family home study costs.
It’s all worth it because Ashbrook has seen the effects of their efforts played out in beautifully blended families. “What started as a thought grew into reality and has become a part of our lives that feels like something we were meant to do.”
For more information about Egg My Yard and to schedule your own egging, go to dream4adoption.org/egg-my-yard/. The event also needs plenty of volunteers to fill eggs or become a local Easter Bunny.
From the Cotter Family:
Please meet the Morrow family. This family was the first Home Study Grant recipient and also the first of the grant families to complete their adoption journey. Dream4Adoption is grateful to be a part of their adoption journey. As we await the other families to finalize their steps to complete their adoptions, feel free to review the testimonial of the Morrow family and feel free to revisit for updates from some of the other families that received a Home Study Grant from Dream4Adoption.
Testimonial:
What an incredible blessing Dream4Adoption has been for our family. There are no other grants out there that I know of as of now who help with home study costs specifically. For us, this grant was huge because we had additional unexpected home study costs as we had to update our home study due to it expiring, as our adoption process took longer than expected. We are incredibly grateful for Dream 4 Adoption and their commitment to adoptive families at large, especially as they fill in the gap for what is missing in terms of home study financial assistance.
Erin and Zawadi Morrow
Hello,
I am SO sorry that it has taken me so long to respond. I must admit that I was a little naive as to how much my life (and schedule) would change by becoming a first time parent! Thankfully, it has changed in the best way possible.
When you sent this email last April, I was preparing to leave for Colombia to bring home my daughter. I found out about her Feb. 2019, and I met her for the first time on May 2019. I spent a month with her in her home country completing the adoption there, and then brought her home in June. It has been an amazing whirlwind as we have both adjusted to each other, she has learned English (very rapidly!) and she has fallen in love with my entire family, just has they have fallen in love with her.
Your grant was so inspirational and beneficial to me because it was the first grant I received, and it helped build believe that this adoption was possible financially. I have been able to encourage multiple other people to adopt, and I always refer your organization to hopefully be an encouragement to them as well.
The picture attached is of me and xxxxx; I brought her home at 2 1/2 and she has already gained 5 lbs, 2 clothing sizes and multiple inches!
Thanks again, for everything!
Jessica