When things feel hard, it feels good to hear that we’re going to be okay. Your grownups can tell you. That’s good. But, what might be even better is if your grownups tell you and help you be able to say it yourself.

There’s a book I like for helping kids use words to share what feels hard and for figuring out things that could make it feel less hard. The words are pretty easy to read; you could read it yourself. But, I think it’s best when Moms or Dads read it with their kiddos, because when it’s time to talk about what it’s like for that kid and what that kid could do, more brains working together are better than one.

Here’s a video of the book with me flipping the pages for you to read together. One friend told me I went a little too fast sometimes (oops!). But, it’s okay; you can just pause the video so that you can read it as slowly as you like.

Here’s a video I made of me reading it too, just for fun.

Once you’ve read the book, think together about what feels hard to you. Maybe you could print some copies of this page (like as many as you want) and make your own “I will be okay” book with your grownup.

If you do and you want to share it, I’d love to see it. Sharing how we are figuring things out is good for everybody!

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Kelly Raudenbush founded The Sparrow Fund along with her husband Mark in 2011 and launched Project Puppy Love, a canine-assisted therapy program for foster and adoptive families in June 2018. As a child and family therapist, Kelly has a particular interest in (a) encouraging and empowering parents who are struggling to attach with their children, (b) helping parents walk with their children as they process their stories, (c) helping couples continue to pursue each other and grow together while they parent their children as a team, and (d) training and empowering orphanage staff in China to build relationships with children and each other. Kelly and Mark have been married since 1998 and have 3 biological children and 1 daughter who was adopted as a toddler from China in 2010. You can contact Kelly directly at kellyraudenbush@sparrowfund.org.

We asked some of our friends in China to send us short video messages that we could share with you.

From a student friend.

From one of our translators.

From a young woman who grew up in the orphanage and worked there before starting a business from home:

From orphanage administrator friends.

From the son of an orphanage administrator who is destined to be an international journalist sensation, we think.

We can practice gratitude and giving anywhere. And, maybe, home is the best place to be to practice.

Use our calendar to encourage your own gratitude and giving right now. Do each thing as designated each day, or choose ones to do in whatever order you want. There aren’t rules, just ideas to get you started.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD YOUR GRATITUDE & GIVING CALENDAR

As we close 2019 and begin 2020, we want to practice gratitude with great intention by recognizing and magnifying our top 10 for the year.

10. Giving Tuesday. We set big goals for Giving Tuesday 2019 because we have big dreams for 2020 and needed engagement and funding to get them started. We set two very specific goals: (1) engage 100 givers and (2) raise $30,000 with the help of a collaborative $15,000 match. It was a slow start to the campaign, and we wondered if our goals may have been too big. But, our people rallied and then rallied more people too. By the end of it all, 127 people together gave $32,601. With that money, we can sustain and GROW what we’re doing. In 2020, we’re going to give more to our Sparrow Services Grant families to best care for them. We’re also hoping to both grow our team and, in so doing, grow what we are able to do for children and families and invest more in our team. We’re about caring for caregivers; that means we need to care for our team well too, making sure we get the training and support we need to be best set up to do this work as we’ve been called to do.

9. Animal Assisted Play Therapy training. In 2018, we launched Project Puppy Love, our canine-assisted therapy program for foster and adopted children and their families, with Louie, a certified facility dog trained and placed through Paws and Affection. As expected, Louie has become a significant helper here who has provided lots of opportunities for comfort, connection for kids and grownups, and creative growth. In 2019, Kelly, his certified handler, enrolled in more training to become a certified associate in animal assisted play therapy so she can get better and better at recognizing and magnifying all the ways that integrating a dog into therapeutic family work can be helpful.

8. Casual Conversations. With a desire to gather people together to foster community and encourage each other, we have been hosting what we call Casual Conversations. Partnering with our friend Simi of Mazi, we invite moms and dads into our space every so often for coffee and conversation around specific subjects worth talking about as we lead our families. In 2019, we talked about helping our kids learn to respond to hard questions, connecting with teens and tweens, navigating social media, talking to our kids about sex, practicing connected parenting, and navigating holidays and family celebrations. We want to keep these gatherings going in 2020, not because we want more on our calendars but because we want more community, more connection, more each otherness. And, we believe that Casual Conversations help us get there. Our next one is right around the corner on Thursday, January 30th when we have another opportunity to talk about how to talk to our kids about sex (because it’s really that important).

7. Helping friends who wait. As we have cared for caregivers in orphanages in China, we’ve gotten to make a lot of friends, many of whom are waiting to become sons and daughters. When we can, we share about those who are waiting. On February 3, 2019, we got an email responding to a blog post we wrote sharing about one of those friends. “I would love to learn more!,” it said. A little more than 8 months later, in October 2019, that friend became the son he was hoping he’d become one day, and we all celebrated big time. While there are a number of friends who are still waiting for someone to want to learn more, we’re anticipating more big celebrations soon as these friends also become sons in 2020.

6. Community. In 2019, more than ever before, we have gotten to be a part of big things outside our normal big things. Some of our favorites from the year include a trip to Boston in June where TSF cofounder and codirector Kelly Raudenbush joined the team at Harvard Graduate School of Education as a facilitator for their special institute “Empowering and Strengthening Relationships Across Early Childhood Settings” where she counted it a privilege to grow herself along with educators from all over the world. We served more local teachers as well through two workshops at the MidAtlantic Christian School Association’s annual conference focusing on trauma and partnering with families. And, we enjoyed supporting teachers and children right where we are by going into some schools with Louie and talking about how hard experiences impact us and how relationships can help us grow and heal.

5. Together Called. In March 2019, we hosted our 7th annual marriage retreat for foster and adoptive husbands and wives. We had 106 couples there from 13 different states who together represented over 388 children—164 biological children, 224 adopted from 23 different countries, and many more children who had been or are currently being fostered for a season. Peter Greer from HOPE International spoke to encourage and challenge us as men and women, husbands and wives, and dads and moms. We are still looking back on that weekend and nodding our heads, saying, “wasn’t that great?” It doesn’t surprise us at all that Together Called 2020 filled fast and has a waiting list.

4. Teamwork. We do what we do because we are in this together; we are a team. Since we want to keep learning how to do teamwork better, in 2019, we held our first TSF board weekend retreat where we shared stories, celebrated big and small wins, wrestled with challenges, and dreamed about next steps that we can take together. And, we laughed…a lot…and that’s exactly what we wanted for that time. We grew our team in 2019 as well. In the Spring, we brought long-time volunteer Abbey Leaman onto our staff as our Development and Care Coordinator to join Mark, Kelly, and Erin. Abbey assists with Sparrow Counseling, Together Called, and other events; oversees fundraising initiatives; and keeps the entire team dreaming via her initiative and creativity.

3. Helpful appreciating.

“There must be times when you wonder what in the world you can do for a certain child or a certain family [or orphanage nanny], yet you wanted so much to be of service that little by little the answer often comes to you, and you discover the way to be that helpful appreciator which invariably makes the difference—no matter how primitive our resources may be.” – Fred Rogers

Despite continued policy challenges, we were able to still go in 2019 as we have gone before to care for caregivers in an orphanage in China as helpful appreciators, gently coming alongside and magnifying beauty and goodness. After all, they are there. It’s a privilege to say over and over again, “Look, look! What you are doing is good! It matters, and you matter.”

2. Sparrow Services Grants. They’re different, our grants. We don’t just select families from applications and write checks. We do give some financial help, but our grants include more than that to support their marriages, the whole family and children already in their home, and the attachment between kids and grownups from the start. In 2019, we brought 14 more families into the Sparrow Services program who are adopting from Bulgaria (3), India (2), China (2), South Korea (2), Djibouti, South Africa, Hungary, Columbia, and the United States–we opened Sparrow Services to include families adopting domestically in 2019! We also celebrated the homecomings of 11 children to Sparrow Services Grant families in 2019: 3 from India, 2 from Thailand, 2 from China, 2 from Bulgaria, 1 from South Korea, and 1 from Liberia (pictured here) for whom we celebrated a little extra given some big challenges that brought us all to our knees. Our application window opens once again as of January 1st, 2020 for the next cohort of families. We can’t wait to see which families will join our Sparrow family next.

1. Sparrow Counseling. In July 2019, we launched our very own specialized program to offer child and family counseling services to meet the unique needs of foster and adoptive families. We knew it would be a pretty big deal to take this on, but we trusted it was the right thing for us as an organization and for families around us. And, the decision has been confirmed over the past 6 months as children and their grownups have entered into this space and experienced each other in new ways that have changed their stories. It’s pretty miraculous really—not because of anything we do but because we get to see and experience it too. That may be the brightest highlight of all of 2019—singular moments…a young girl able to say “I’m sad” to her mom for the first time, a boy able to tell his own story without shame, a dad saying that it feels good to laugh together, a mom who can say “I’m a good mom” and really believe it…that all come together and remind us that hope is possible and that it is our calling, privilege, and joy to be hope growers and bridge builders.

Stay tuned as our Top 10 for 2020 unfolds before our very eyes. We can’t wait to live it.

Big dreams call for big goals. Our team put heads and hearts together and set a funding goal of $30,000 this Giving Tuesday with one-third going to Sparrow Services grants, one-third going to training, and one-third going to operating costs. But, more important than a funding goal is our goal to reach more, engage more.

Some of our special donors put their hearts together too and decided to open their pockets up wide to help us get there. In order to grow the giving and grow the engagement, these donors have together pledged to give a total of $15,000 if we engage 100 givers on Giving Tuesday.  What that means is that no matter what amount you give, by helping us reach that number of 100 people giving on Giving Tuesday, your donation will be multiplied, potentially several times over!

We also want to give to you not because we want to convince you to give to us or pay you back in some way for donating. That negates the meaning of a gift. We just want you to know how grateful we are for you, the people who help us keep helping. And, simply put, we love giving.

Our token of thanks for every Giving Tuesday giver of $50 or more

Your Giving Tuesday donation of $50 or more will help us reach the goal of engaging 100 unique givers and unlock the $15,000 pledged when we do, and we’ll send you a printable set of 44 Scripture Seeds created by our friend Nicole at Color + Kindness. These 4×4 cards with lovely art and sweet words can be used by grownups and little ones alike to memorize verses from the Bible or place strategically as reminders in lunch boxes, coat pockets, and car dashboards. And, since they are printable, you can use them again and again and keep the giving going.

Our token of thanks for every Giving Tuesday giver of $100 or more

Your Giving Tuesday donation of $100 or more will help us reach the goal of engaging 100 unique givers and unlock the $15,000 pledged when we do, and we’ll give you the Scripture Seeds pack and send you one of our favorite things–a custom-printed journal that gives space for reflective journaling and provides a way to see themes in particular seasons of life. Since it comes packaged with instructions, you can use it yourself or give it as a gift to someone you care about.

Giving Tuesday is not until…well, Tuesday…but it’s not too early to get in on the goodness. Eat turkey. Eat leftover turkey. And, give whenever you want to give by clicking HERE and selecting “Giving Tuesday” in the dropdown list.

We like good books. And, there are a lot of them out there for grown ups and for children, books that don’t just educate but books that say in one way or another that we matter to each other and offer ways to practice that mattering. 

When we found Meek and Brittany and their shop,  Redirected Wood Co., we knew they were the right people to help us help others by designing and building something special so that we could share some of those good books with our people and encourage them to share too. 

This week, after a long time of idea sharing and putting heads together, we now a little free library outside our office. We’ve stocked it with books for foster and adoptive families that remind us of the importance of relationship and help us build healthy ones. We’re excited to have our first contributions to the library leave with families. (We may be a little too excited to see who our first taker will be!). And, we look forward to seeing what new titles appear in there as friends add books to share with other families. Sharing is so fun. 

Make sure you check out Redirected Wood Co. Brittany and Meek are skilled and creative, using sustainably sourced and reclaimed materials to build remarkable custom pieces like live edge tables and custom cabinets. They have big hearts and dreams to use their business to provide opportunity for kids aging out of foster care to not only learn a trade to be able to successfully earn a living but be redirected in the context of relationship as they learn that they really do matter and can create and do beautiful things. 

We are a team eager to go deeper in how we serve families. As of today, we are doing that in a big way. Today marks the start of Sparrow Family Services, specialized child and family therapeutic services for foster and adoptive families provided by our cofounder and codirector Kelly Raudenbush and supported by our team.

Kelly has practiced at the Attachment & Bonding Center of PA for the past 4 years with Cheryl Nitz, ACSW, LCSW, well known for her expertise in trauma and attachment and service to families and professionals from all over the country. We are excited to now have Kelly bring together her leadership skills and experience with her clinical practice and experience to continue to serve families in significant ways through The Sparrow Fund.

Please click HERE to read more about the vision of Sparrow Family Services and HERE to read answers to what we anticipate to be the most frequently asked questions about our new services.

We look forward to caring for caregivers in deeper and deeper ways!

Families adopting internationally aren’t the only ones who need a little extra support like what we offer through our Sparrow Services grants. We realize that families adopting children here in the United States either privately or through foster care/social services could benefit from what have to offer too. The support for them may look a little different, but that’s what our support is about–meeting each family where they are and customizing what support we give based on their needs.

As of July 1st when our Sparrow Services grant application window opens again, we are encouraging families adopting internationally or domestically to apply. We can’t wait to see who we get to serve next.

Wanna learn more about what a Sparrow Services grant includes and how to apply? Click HERE to learn more.