The first thing I did was to sell hair bows. So far, this has brought in about $500, and I still have lots more ribbon to make some more bows! (Let me know if you want some!)
Next we held a yard sale. Actually, it was a selling palooza, consisting of selling some things on Craigslist and e-bay and having yard sales two Saturdays in a row. We had only planned on one big yard sale, but our neighbor had advertised one the weekend before ours was scheduled, so we went ahead and pulled some of our wares out. We had lots of people donate items for us to sell, and we made about $2000 altogether, which was much more than I had ever anticipated! Caroline enjoyed helping by selling chocolate covered pretzels.
Next on our agenda is a Thirty-One party. My good friend Lorrie is a consultant, and she generously offered to have a party for me and donate all of her earnings from the party to our adoption fund.
I have truly been humbled by the generosity of others through this process. We've had friends and family make donations. I had one neighbor whom I had never met write me a $20 check at our yardsale, and only buy a children's book. Several others said, "Keep the change." Lots of friends, both here in Birmingham and far away, have told their pals with little gals about my hair bows. It's truly neat to see so many come together to help us bring our child home.
So why all the fundraising? I'm not going to sugarcoat it; adoption is expensive. In total, we will spend about $30,000 during this process. A lot of that we have already paid over the past 5 years. Our final fees, which are due soon, will total $9,500. We also have to fund a trip to Colombia for 3-4 weeks. In the end, though, our family will grow by one, and the 143,000,000 orphans will be less one. Praise God!
No comments:
Post a Comment