Finding families for kids who need them can be daunting. With over 110,000 kids in the U.S. alone needing adoptive families, it can feel like an impossible problem.

If no one steps up to do anything about it, it will be. But thankfully, 2023 was another year when Kidsave stepped up for older kids in foster care and orphans internationally.

In 2023, we operated three programs: Weekend Miracles (in Los Angeles and Houston), Summer Miracles, and Kidsave Ukraine. We also continued to provide financial support and partnership to the Foundation for Integrated Development (FID) in Sierra Leone. Each of these programs accomplished so much this year, and we couldn’t be prouder!

Weekend Miracles

The Weekend Miracles program helps older youth in foster care connect with caring families in their local communities for mentorship, hosting, and adoption. In Los Angeles and Houston, 147 kids participated in Weekend Miracles, and over half of them were connected to potential adoptive parents or mentors in 2023.

One thing that people who work outside of the child welfare system may not realize is that finalized adoptions can take time to process. There is a long process with many steps involved to ensure both the child and the family are ready to take this step. By the time an adoption is finalized, it can feel like crossing the finish line of a marathon.

Several Kidsave kids celebrated their adoption finalizations this year!

Dominic was adopted through our LA Weekend Miracles program at 17. People often overlook older kids like Dominic, leaving them to age out of foster care without support. That’s why we work so hard to shine a light on amazing older kids like Dominic and help them create connections with potential adoptive parents.

After some time, Dominic’s parents Mike and Tom officially adopted him. Tom expressed during the adoption ceremony, “I’ve been telling everyone, ‘It takes a village,’ and the village came for this very special day.”

When a host adopts a kid, it’s cause for celebration. In 2023, one of our Houston Weekend Miracles families finalized their third adoption!

Larry Finley had adopted his son Charles through Kidsave, and they continued attending events as program ambassadors. While at an event, they were introduced to a young man in need of an adoptive family named Skyler.

Skyler said, “It was an immediate connection as soon as soon as we met. [W]e bonded over fishing, hunting, cooking, and it was natural.”

After spending more time getting to know each other and the family, Skyler, Charles, and Larry all felt comfortable moving forward with the adoption, the process began. Skyler has a younger biological brother. Often when siblings enter the foster care system, they are separated, and it is not guaranteed that they will be adopted together. But soon after Skyler joined the family, dad Larry started the process to adopt Michael, too.

Today, the family has since celebrated Michael’s adoption, and the boys are getting to experience life as one big happy family!

Summer Miracles

Summer Miracles is an international adoption program that brings older orphans from Colombia—for whom all efforts have been exhausted in their home country—to the U.S. to stay with host families and meet potential adoptive families.

In 2023, 41 older orphans participated in our Summer Miracles program and 28 of those kids now have a family moving forward for adoption. Six kids came for our Winter program in December, and we are hard at work responding to interest from potential forever families!

This year, we also had the chance to reconnect with sisters Luisa, Maria, and Jesica, who were one of our early Summer Miracles success stories. As orphans growing up in Colombia, things were incredibly difficult, and as a sibling group, there was little to no chance they were going to be adopted.

Luckily, through Kidsave’s Summer Miracles program, they were able to travel to the U.S. and stay with a host family and spend a summer having new experiences and meeting potential adoptive families. That was the summer they met the couple they would call Mom and Dad. The sisters agreed it was an immediate connection.

“We picked our parents that day,” said Luisa.”

The sisters then said they hope that they can in turn help other children going through similar experiences and pay it forward someday the way they were helped through Kidsave.

Kidsave Ukraine

Kidsave has been working in Ukraine since 2016 helping to reform the nation’s overburdened child welfare system, find local adoptive families for orphans, and provide support to older youth transitioning out of institutional care and into independent living.

When the Russian invasion into Ukraine began in 2022, in addition to our core programs, our team also began aiding evacuation efforts and delivering humanitarian aid to those in need. To date, we have evacuated over 30,000 children and families and delivered more than two tons of vital supplies to regions affected by the war.

Along with these life-saving efforts, our team continued to conduct our core programs. This year 202 teens participated in our Pathway to Success program which helps teens transition out of institutional care. We helped move 144 kids from orphanages and emergency shelters into family homes in Ukraine.

Across Ukraine, construction began on the Kidsave Miracles Center, a multi-functional campus that aims to provide war trauma therapy, safe housing, and positive connections for orphans; resources and training for social workers; and mentorship and entrepreneurship opportunities for young adults who have aged out of care.

Sierra Leone

This was an exciting year for our program in Sierra Leone: in 2023, we placed 146 kids in families! The process of finding a family for a child in Sierra Leone is unique from our other programs, as it relies on case mining and reunification efforts. Many of the children in orphanages were separated from their families or removed from their homes during the Ebola crisis or because of civil war. But they may still have living relatives in nearby villages or neighbors from their home villages who are willing and able to care for them.

Our partners at the Foundation for Integrated Development (FID) in Sierra Leone first speak to the children to see what they remember about their family, extended relatives, and home village. Then they travel from village to village and conduct extensive interviews  to see if any of the children’s relatives are still alive and able to care for them. If the can’t find any living relatives, they then look to community members in the child’s home village to find viable adoptive parents.

One of the children we helped this year was a little girl named Margaret Adu. Margaret was only three years old when her parents died of Ebola. After 9 years in an orphanage, we reunited Margaret with her older sister Sarah and her aunt.

Like her younger sister, Sarah had spent years in an orphanage after their parents’ death. “Life in the orphanage was not easy,” she said. “We eat, but it was not always enough. I felt good when I learnt there was someone from my family who was ready to parent me. Thank you Kidsave for bringing happiness into my life!”

The work of traveling from village to village can be long and tiresome, but it is extremely effective because of the strong sense of family and community within the African villages. Of course, this extensive case mining can’t be done without transportation! That’s why one of our big purchases this year was a brand-new motorcycle for the IDI-SL social workers to use to travel from village to village. While a motorcycle might not be the preferred way for U.S. social workers to get around, it’s actually the best way to navigate Sierra Leone’s rough, narrow roads.

Another exciting milestone we reached with our Sierra Leone program this year comes through the story of a young woman named Millicent Sinnah. Millicent was reunited with her father through our program years ago. In 2023, after graduating from university she joined IDI-SL as a social worker!

Millicent’s goal is to contribute to the work that helped reunite her with her own father. We are so proud of our first Sierra Leone program alumna who has joined us as a staff member.

Kidsave is grateful for everyone who supported us and helped us create these amazing moments. We couldn’t have done it without you. We look forward to creating more life-changing connections together in 2024.