Our Vision | A world where every child has a loving and secure home.
We are excited to be offering virtual camp to youth Adoptees again this summer. It is easier than ever for Adoptees to participate in Holt Adoptee Camp. Adoptees will join from the comfort of their home and only need a device with a working camera and microphone to be a part of camp! Continue reading “Register Now for Summer 2021 Holt Adoptee Camp at Home!”
Congratulations to Jim De, director of Holt’s partner in Delhi, India, for receiving the Mahatma Ghandi award honoring 21 years of service to vulnerable children and families in India! Continue reading “Jim De, Holt India Partner, Wins Mahatma Ghandi Award”
Holt Adoptee Camp Director Joli Hanlon shares how she spends the eight-month off-season to continue serving adoptees — and make the camp experience the best it can be.
One of the most common questions I get asked as Holt Adoptee Camp director is, “What do you do when camp is not happening?” Surprisingly, being camp director is a year-round job and there are a variety of tasks that I work on during the off-season. Here are five things that I do before and after camp that you may or may not know about: Continue reading “Holt Adoptee Camp Director: What I Do When Camp is Not in Session”
Contact:
Susan Soonkeum Cox
susanc@holtinternational.org
(541) 687-2202
Eugene, Oregon, November 10, 2020 — After an 18-month approval process, Holt International is now authorized to provide homestudy and post-placement services to adoptive families in the state of New York. While Holt facilitates adoptions for families in all 50 states, until now, Holt had to rely on coordinating provider agencies to complete the homestudy and post-placement portion of the adoption process for New York-resident families who were adopting a child through Holt. Continue reading “Holt International Now Licensed to Provide Direct Adoption Services in New York State”
Contact:
Susan Soonkeum Cox
susanc@holtinternational.org
541-687-2202
Effective November 2, 2020, Holt-Sunny Ridge in Bolingbrook, Illinois will be renamed as Holt International, Illinois and Wisconsin branch.
Sunny Ridge Family Center, a long-standing child services organization in Illinois, merged with Holt International and became Holt-Sunny Ridge in April 2014. In June 2019, Holt-Sunny Ridge became licensed in Wisconsin and took over Lutheran Social Services of Wisconsin and Upper Michigan (LSS)’s private domestic adoption services in Wisconsin. Continue reading “Holt-Sunny Ridge Becomes Holt International, Illinois and Wisconsin Branch”
As COVID-19 canceled in-person gatherings this summer, Holt Adoptee Camp moved online — offering a virtual camp experience for over 400 youth adoptees, including many adoptees who had never attended Holt camp before.
Holt Camp at Home just completed our first ever camp season online and the experience has been wild! As the effects of COVID-19 spread across the country, closing down schools and many youth summer programs, Holt Adoptee Camp was no exception to the growing risk of meeting together and the decision had to be made to cancel our in-person camp season. Continue reading “Holt Camp at Home”
Since April 22, we have heard from a number of families concerned about President Trump’s executive order suspending immigration to the U.S. during the economic recovery period following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Holt has now received confirmation that this suspension does not apply to immigration via international adoption. Children can still travel home to the U.S. with their adoptive families, and international adoptions can move forward without delay. Continue reading “International Adoption Not Affected By President’s Immigration Ban”
Over the past several weeks, Holt International, like all organizations, has experienced the consequences of the coronavirus outbreak and the critical impact on our programs, our staff and partners, and the children and families we serve together with you around the world. As the world watched what was happening in China, this felt very personal to Holt. With the health and safety of both children and families our utmost concern, we made the heart-wrenching decision to suspend travel for more than 20 adoptive families who were ready to bring their children home. In both the U.S. and China, Holt staff responded quickly to support and assist families and took immediate measures to ensure our partner orphanages had the medical and other supplies needed to protect the children in their care.
When the virus began to spread to Korea and other countries where we work in Asia, we took immediate action — sending masks and other supplies to our partners in those countries. Thankfully, as of today, we have received no reports of any children in our programs contracting the virus, and we continue to pray for the health and safety of all children, families, staff, partners and supporters around the world. Continue reading “Holt’s Work Continues Amid the Coronavirus Pandemic”
When the Poliakoff family travels on Holt’s heritage tour to Vietnam, they meet a family whose quiet heroism in the face of poverty inspires them to help build a safe new home for the family and their children.
The second morning of our Holt Vietnam heritage tour, we set out at 9 a.m. from downtown Hanoi in our tour buses to visit families receiving services through Holt’s family strengthening program. I’m not sure that any of us knew what to expect. What we encountered that steamy July morning changed my understanding of Holt’s role, of families living in poverty, and of ways that our American families could make a real and sustaining difference. Continue reading “The Least We Could Do”
Every year, the Post Adoption Services department chooses a group of leadership staff and counselors to spend their entire summer at Holt Adoptee Camp — a weeklong overnight camp for international and domestic adoptees, ages 5-17. The staff members grew up all across the U.S., and they come from different backgrounds, families and cultures.