Some of you may remember my attempts last year to raise money for a little orphan with Down syndrome during Reece's Rainbow's Christmas Angel Tree fundraiser. See here He is called Sergei G. on the Reece's Rainbow Waiting Children page.
Sergei G.
You may also remember that you and I helped raise over $3000 for his adoption fund!!!! WAHOOOOO!
First, before I get too carried away, let me give some background info for those of you hearing about Reece's Rainbow for the first time:
Reece's Rainbow is an organization that promotes the international adoption of children with Down syndrome in a way that seems very unique to me. They create accounts for each of the children on their 'Waiting Children' pages and people can donate to a specific child. When a family comes forth to adopt a child, the money in that child's account is used for the adoption fees. If the adoption falls through for some reason, the money stays in the child's account so that another family can make use of the money!
Here is some info that will SHOCK you! In Eastern European countries, right now, babies that are born with Ds are immediately put into orphanages. Their parents are told that their babies aren't capable of learning, loving or living a life and that they should be cordoned off from the rest of society. There are not options for Early Intervention therapy, doctor intervention or even schooling. Oftentimes the families of people with Down syndrome are shunned and find it difficult to find work and other necessities of life. Therefore these sweet sweet babies are abandoned to orphanages FILLED with all the other children that don't look 'perfect', that have some extra special chromosomes, or had a difficult start to life because their mama drank and drank throughout the pregnancy.
When these babies become grown and old, no wait, when they turn 3-6 YEARS old (!!!) they are transferred to adult mental institutions. Insane asylums. Locked up. Left in their cribs. Thrown a bottle of food and possibly given a diaper change. Most of these medically fragile darlings die within the first year due to neglect and horrible living conditions.
While Chad and I hope to adopt one of these angels in the future, it is not our time yet. So the least I can do is shout out for Sergei and try to find him a family AND get some more money into his adoption fund!!!!!
The goal of a Christmas Warrior is to commit to raising $1000 for a child on RR's Christmas Angel Tree. However, it costs $25,000 to adopt a child with Ds from an orphanage/institution so I set a CRAZY goal for myself, and for you all, to see if we can add $5,000 to his current adoption fund of $5396. That would be over $10,000!!!!!!!!!!
I am so excited to think you, my friends, can work together to give one boy a chance!!!! A chance of finding a family to love him! A chance to give a potential family a good financial head start toward the huge cost of international adoption.
Oh, please help Sergei find a family!!! Please tell your friends and family. Please go to Reece's Rainbow's Angel Tree kids and gaze at all of these Down syndrome beauties; gaze at their sweetness; their innocence. Do any of them touch your heart? Does Sergei touch your heart enough for you to repost on Facebook or to email my blog to your family? To donate?
I truly hope so!!!!!
Now here are the GIVEAWAY details for all those people out there who like the idea of 'winning' a sweet Christmas present to either keep or give away, there's an added incentive in giving to sweet Sergei.
I am donating a brand new Amazon Kindle Fire!!!!!
Every donation of $5 will give you 1 entry into my giveaway. A donation of $35 will qualify you for 10 entries plus Reece's Rainbow will send you an ornament with Sergei's picture on it!
$5 = 1 entry
$10= 2 entries
$35 = 10 entries + an ornament
$40 = 11 entries
Bonus Entries: Anyone who donates has the added option to gain more entries by posting about this giveaway on their blog, Facebook, or Twitter. You will get an additional entry per post/FB/Twitter, per day, once a donation is received. Please comment or email me (sweetsergei@hotmail.com) to tell me about your cross posts!
I will draw a winner on November 30, 2011 via random.com and will post the results on December 1st. The winner will have a brand new Kindle Fire mailed to you directly from Amazon!!!!
There will also be another drawing starting on December 1st and running through December 31st. I will post details about the sweet prizes as time gets closer!!! There may even be small weekly giveaways to keep you enticed!
Addition Info:
Click Sergei's picture on the right to get all the Angel Tree info from Reece's Rainbow.
As for information on my fundraising for Sergei, all the money donated through Chip-In (Online Paypal) goes directly to Sergei's adoption fund. I can see who donates, but I never come in contact with the money. If you'd prefer to donate by writing a check, please make it out to Reece's Rainbow, put a notation that it's for Sergei G. on the Angel Tree, and mail it to:
Reece’s Rainbow
PO Box 4024
Gaithersburg, MD 20885
Thanks for helping Sergei!
Lots of love,
Debby
1 comment:
Thanks for being Sergei's Christmas Warrior and providing all of us a means to provide money so he can get adopted.
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