Its been a busy year over here at AFAAD!
From one of our social gatherings
We’ve been meeting all year, once a month, going back and forth between a social setting, and for our discussion group. These group meetings have been instrumental in our growth as a solid group. We started off only meeting for discussion and realized we needed social time together, just being with one another. The discussion group has been full of watching adoption films together, discussing our individual searches for our birth families, our struggles and joys with our reunions and of course the surreal-ness of what it all means for us in our 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’sand beyond. For all of us, its been the first time we’ve had a chance to vocalize our struggles with our families, our childhoods and to articulate with people who actually understand the depth of our complex experiences. We all have such different stories, and such divergent ways of expressing them, but it comes down to connection.
Our Development Coordinator Connie Galambos-Malloy stuffing envelopes!
Our Development Board has also been meeting once monthly! Yes – we’ve been busy! Whew! The board has been busy finalizing our nonprofit paperwork, developing our youth and adult programming, looking for funding, creating collaborations with other adoptee organizations, other foster youth support organizations and of course – planning our firsts ever Annual Gathering in November! For all of the update information on the gathering – Check out the Info Page. In June we did our first announcement mailing to let everyone in the adoption world and beyond know that we exist and that we are growing quickly! Karie and Connie and I spent hours in the AFAAD ‘office’ stuffing envelopes with flyers and information packets.
Lisa Marie with Amie Kim (Board Member) & Younghee Lowrie of AKASF.
I also spent sometime working closely and visiting with local Korean adoptees in the Bay. Watching their work together and seeing how they create space for one another is amazing! Whats really been inspiring is their direct support of AFAAD’s growth and their complete understanding of our need to support black adoptees on a global scale. Its amazing how similar our needs are as communities. Collaboration in the future is SO goin down!
I have to say, for me this year has been an amazing learning and growing experience. Not only has my own search and reunion developed in new ways, my relationship with TRA’s across the globe continues to grow!
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