On Sept. 26, about 1,000 people gathered in Vermont's Champlain Valley Expo fairgrounds for the annual Lund Family Center Adoption Picnic. John Briggs of the Burlington Free Press described the event in his Sept. 27 article:

This is the first year Lund Family Center has opened the picnic to the media. They had been concerned about privacy, said Wanda Audette, the center's adoption director, particularly for parents who adopted through the center's partnership with the Vermont Department for Children and Families' Project Family. Those children, she said, have been removed from their birth parents because of abuse or neglect.

But the center decided this year that the event was too big and too cheerful to keep quiet about.

"Adoption isn't focused on in school," said Kitty Bartlett, who handles public relations for the center. "This is pretty joyous. For a child to come to a picnic where everyone is connected through adoption is a pretty powerful thing."

Lund Family Center is well established in the area, Briggs reported, having helped to find homes for about 8,600 children since opening as the "The Home for Friendless Women" in 1890. (And no, that's not a typo -- the organization has been in existence since the final decade of the 19th century.

Labels: celebration

Posted By: Aspen/CRC