Welcome to the Bright Futures California blog!

Hi everyone,

I'm Jen Cantwell, and I am working with the Gladney Center for Adoption to bring home our second child, a daughter, from Ethiopia. I have recently been in discussions with Gladney regarding ways that I can volunteer my time to do more to help the many children in Ethiopia that we will not be able to bring home. I am hoping that we will be able to work together to expand Gladney's existing "Bright Futures Camp" program and bring it to Northern California in 2008.

The aim of the Bright Futures Camp program is to bring older children, ages 6-16, to the United States to match them with prospective permanent families, or families that make a commitment to advocate for permanent placement for the children in their communities. In the existing program, the kids stay with a sponsor family for 2 weeks during the summer. During this time the children can spend time learning about what American life is like, as well as spend every other day at "camp", a workshop involving all the children in the program. During camp the children will learn about American culture, play games, do crafts and take trips around the area.

My job, if we are able to raise enough interest to start a California program, will be to...
1. Raise money, both private and corporate, to help sponsor the children's entry into the U.S. Each child will need $2,500 in travel fees, either by donation or individual sponsorship. It will be my goal to raise the money to cover these particular fees for each child.
2. Identify prospective families, both adoptive and advocates, for the children to stay with during the camp.
3. Help coordinate and run the camp when the children are in country.
4. If the program gets the green light by Gladney, it will be my personal goal to identify at least 10 families to host/adopt/advocate for these children. This means that my goal will be to raise at least $25,000 to bring 10 children to the states for the camp program.

If you're interested in learning more about this program, please visit the Gladney sites below...
http://www.brightfuturescamp.com/
http://www.brightfuturescamp.com/news.html
and to learn about adoption fees...
http://www.brightfuturescamp.com/bf_ethiopia_fees.html

I should note that the fees for the adoption of an older child through Gladney's Bright Futures Camp program are drastically reduced, about $15,000 per child including travel to Ethiopia (less per child if you adopt a sibling set). The U.S. government offers a ~$11,500 tax credit for expenses paid in the tax year that you adopt the child, as well as an additional ~$11,500 deduction for any additional fees paid. These tax breaks apply if you make less than $165,000 per year. That means that an adoption that costs $15,000 would only cost about $2,500 after the tax breaks.

Please feel free to write to me with any helpful insights you may have about how I can accomplish my goals of raising money, helping children, and bringing families together. You can reach me at jencantwell@comcast.net . Thanks for reading. Please stay tuned to this site for more news as it emerges.

Jen