Zeno Group Blog

I just finished with assiting with the 9th annual National Adoption Day, along with several of my Zeno colleagues.  National Adoption Day is a nationwide event, originally started here in Los Angeles by the Alliance for Children’s Rights. Judges, lawyers, families, and the community come in once a year to finalize hundreds of adoptions in every city and bring attention to the 129,000 children who are in foster care and available for adoption. This year we had several celebrities, including Lucy Liu, Nia Vardalos (who recently adopted a daughter), and Sue Naegle; help the families finalize their adoptions.

I had a wonderful time at the event. It was truly amazing to watch all of the parents and children, some of whom had been together for years as foster parents and children, officially become families. Most touching were the foster parents who had previously adopted a child and were back this year to adopt one of that child’s siblings. Several things struck me about the day.First was the outporing of support from the community. Before any of the adopting families showed up, dozens of volunteers, ranging from girl scouts to corporate lawyers, arrived to decorate, provide food, give out gifts, and assist with the adoptions.

Second was the level of emotion. While I was expecting people to be happy about the day, the sheer sense of joy and euphoria in many of the families was astounding. Several of my co-workers who had participated in the event before had told me about it, but you cannot fully appreciate it until you see it for yourself. I chose the picture at the top of the page because it is the single shot that best captures the feeling of the day. You can truly see the joy on this mother’s face as she signs the adoption papers and officially becomes the mother of the little boy sitting next to her.

Third was the dedication of everyone who was working there. Despite several hiccups in the day (such as many of the families being delayed due to the fires raging through LA County), everyone was calm and patient. Everyone there knew the importance of the day and was committed to making sure that it happened. Schedules were juggled, plans were changed, and in the end, all of the children were united with their new families.

I’d like to say congratulations to all the other Zeno LA staff who were with me today (in particular, Kari Ramsey who did an amazing job coordinating the Zeno presence). I encourage everyone to reach out into their communities and find organizations that they can assist. The sense of joy and accomplishment gained from this work is truly unmatched by anything else we do.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 17th, 2008 at 11:33 am and is filed under CSR . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.