A Shameless Plug...

Last October, I attended some training for work (yes, I go to a lot of training), and we talked about how using your networks combined with the principle of six degrees of separation can lead to amazing connections and can help you get insights / resources you never knew you had access to. So, while we're waiting and we seem to be expanding our personal network through this blog, I have an adoption-related request for help from folks.

Warning: What follows is a shameless plug for the Cincinnati Children's Hospital International Adoption Center fundraiser and a request for others to get involved in said event. Read at your own risk! :-)

Last year about this time, one of my co-workers who's adopted from Guatemala suggested to me that I look into the education classes offered by Cincinnati Children's International Adoption Clinic, and then invited me to join her and her husband at the fundraiser for the IAC in September.

We went to the classes in the spring, and they really helped to convince us that International Adoption was something that we wanted to do, and we had a great time attending the September fundraiser, which is called "Passport to Forever."

In fact, we had such a good time that I volunteered to help out with it this year. Somehow (and I'm not sure exactly how this happened, as I don't exactly recall doing this, but maybe it was the yummy food at the kick-off meeting that put me into some sort of carb-overload-related altered state of consciousness??), I "volunteered" to co-lead the publicity committee, in addition to working on getting items for our silent auction and working on the presentation of said items for the auction. I'm really excited to be helping an organization that does so much for the local adoption community. This year's proceeds will go toward expanding the clinic to include therapists that can serve children beyond the initial needs in the first few years that they come home and to fund another physician who can help address referral questions.

This year's event is September 13, 2008 at the Cintas Center in Cincinnati. Our guest speaker will be Melissa Fay Greene, an author and adoptive mother who has written (among other books) "There is No Me Without You," which is about the AIDS-caused orphan crisis in Ethiopia and the story of one woman who has tried to provide a safe place for children impacted by this crisis. The speaker is preceded by a silent auction and a fashion show by families who are involved with the IAC, and then we end the night with a few large raffle drawings (last year, we had tickets to the Bengals / Patriots game, diamond earrings, and very rare wines that were raffled off).

If you're interested in helping, there are three things that you can get involved with -- please let me know if any are appealing to you.

1) It's a great evening, and if anyone is interested in attending, please let me know. Ticket information should be on the website -- http://www.passporttoforever.com/. We'd love to have a table full of friends to sit with!

2) If anyone reading this blog has any great contacts with media or other publicity opportunities in the Cinci / Dayton area, I'd love a little help getting started on publicity items. This is the first year we've really thought about what we need to do for publicity, so we're starting from scratch!

3) If anyone has any great ideas for raffle items or silent auction items (or even something they'd like to donate!), please let me know!