Oak Park's Adoption-Link Looking for Help

Twenty years ago, Margaret Fleming was a divorced mother of three with credit card-financed ambitions to start an adoption agency specializing in finding homes for traditionally hard to place children.

After a nerve wracking year getting the business established, the tide began to turn, and attendance at grassroots informational meetings began to swell.

“I don’t think I could’ve went on another month. But things turned around very quickly. We were deluged with calls,” she said. “We started attracting what we call special families for special kids. From day one, I felt we should we should keep our doors open to anyone who was qualified.”

Today, Adoption-Link prides itself on being the area's premiere adoption agency for African, African-American, multi-racial, HIV positive and other special-needs children. Their outreach has extended to Haiti and Uganda, where Adoption Link has provided for orphan adoptions.

"We’ve evolved from a very small, one-purpose agency to a fully accredited, licensed, Hague-accredited agency working more and more with children with special needs. That’s been a niche for us that were very proud of," said Fleming, whose family has grown to 12 children — three biological and nine adopted, including three who are HIV positive.

But the agency, headquartered in an unassuming office on South Boulevard, is in trouble. Adoption numbers have plummeted, Fleming said, because more birth mothers are either choosing to keep or abort their babies. That's led to a dramatic decline in fees, which Adoption-Link relies on support its domestic and international programs, as well as its small staff.

Now, they're launching Campaign Sustain, an ambitious fundraising program that aims to raise $300,000 by October 1, 2012. "It would be a travesty if we had to close our doors," Fleming said. "We need a big boost somehow to help us help those children and the families who want them."

For more information on Campaign Sustain, including links to one-click donations, visit this page. Below is Fleming's letter to the community, republished in whole:

Dear Friend of Adoption-Link,

I am contacting you to provide an update of Adoption-Link’s contributions and challenges. Conceived one late night 20 years ago at my kitchen table, and financed with low interest credit cards, Adoption-Link has emerged from a fledgling, grass-roots organization to a licensed Hague Accredited International Adoption Agency.

From the beginning Adoption-Link has focused on those families and children who were often overlooked by more traditional agencies. For example, Adoption-Link has always welcomed qualified families whether they be single, older, gay/lesbian or otherwise “outside the box”.

Similarly Adoption-Link has always served many of the world’s most vulnerable children. Beginning with the placement of African American newborns, many of whom were drug-exposed and of low birth weight, and continuing as a pioneer in HIV+ adoptive placements, today Adoption-Link takes great pride in having been able to find an appropriate family for every child, regardless of the physical or mental challenges facing that boy or girl.

One of our most memorable matches was that of finding the right adoptive family for an infant boy born with no arms and no legs. Locating that family took less than 24 hours! Today that infant is a healthy and vibrant teenager.

Currently, in addition to active adoption programs in the US, Haiti and Uganda, Adoption-Link provides advocacy, education and humanitarian aid to those in its programs. We are currently supporting 14 young Ugandan children who will never be adopted as well as providing goods and services to our partners in Haiti. Through our contacts, donors have provided an automobile, appliances, an x-ray machine, and sustainable agricultural systems. After the earthquake in 2010, our Haitian partner’s administrative offices were destroyed. Adoption-Link was able to raise over $20,000 to lease and furnish a new building. Finally, this agency appealed to its donors to support 30 orphans placed by UNICEF in our Haitian orphanage. The cost of this support totaled $15,000.

Looking forward to the next 20 years, with the wisdom and experience gained from the last 20, our challenge is to celebrate and sustain what we have created. In order to do this we need your help.

Our dreams are mighty but our financial reserves are not. In order to continue our work, we have initiated “CAMPAIGN SUSTAIN 2012”. In this time of economic havoc, many other agencies and programs have ceased to exist, leaving children with even fewer resources.

In addition, if our campaign to raise $300,000 by October 1, 2012 fails, then Adoption-Link in turn will fail the children and families who depend on us. Enclosed is a picture of Angel who is one of the fourteen children dependent on our monthly help for everything: a roof over her head, food to eat, medical care, schooling, clothing and perhaps most important, nurturing.

This child was tortured by her own father who burned her with the sole of his sandal. She has been in care for the last year and has made significant gains. Angel is only one of many children who need our support on a daily basis. We cannot do this alone. The children can’t wait and we need you and the assistance of your friends and colleagues to keep Angel and others like her safe and hopeful.

A contribution of any amount will be gratefully received, acknowledged and put to good use. If you are able to provide a matching grant, please indicate you willingness to do so by calling the office, 708-524-1433.

You may also give by sending a check or going to our website: www.adoption-link.org, and click on SUPPORT OUR WORK, DONATIONS. Also, would you be willing to share this communication with your family and close friends? Together we can make a powerful difference in the lives of the world’s most vulnerable children. We are counting on you to help us.

Yours Sincerely,
Margaret Fleming, LCSW
Founding Director