SUCCESS STORIES

Family Hope Summer 2005

Challenges may be defined by the sheer volume of a task, others may be defined by the difficulty and others by the short deadlines. Combine all three in the height of the tourist season and you have the Family Hope summer program of International Family Services.

The initial numbers started out at 289 orphans to be brought over between the middle of July and the end of August. This final number eased down to 179.

Moving the children and their escorts went from the smallest group of 13 to the largest  of 39. The destinations were Fredericksburg VA., Phoenix, Denver, Fort Myers, Tallahassee, Springfield, Dallas and Houston.

The objective of the summer program is to offer potential adoptive families and the orphans an extended period to facilitate bonding between child and family. Over the past six years of hosting this program, the percentage of children adopted has been 98%.

Two of our agents traveled to New York to assist in the transfer of our largest group of 39 headed to Houston. This group had a particularly difficult transfer from a JFK arrival with a departure out of Newark airport the next morning. It would be nice to report that all went perfectly, but that was not the case. Due to delays checking in, the group missed the plane by three minutes. The next hour was spent scrambling with the airline's assistance to devise an alternate plan to reach Houston the same day. With a little bit of luck, the children arrived at 8:30pm that evening.

We would like to acknowledge the support of Aeroflot Airlines which allowed us to ticket as late as four days before travel. Another key support vendor was Russian American Consulting in New York which provided us translators to meet our groups arriving in New York and assist them in transferring to their domestic destinations. We had shuttle companies, bus companies, pizza restaurants, hotels and even the airlines which have gone "the extra mile" to support this program. Thanks to everyone for getting the children here and a special thanks to the counselors running the program and the families who have hosted the children.