FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 9/20/05

Contact:

Gongzhan Wu
(212) 222-8128

Gladney Celebrates 10 Years of China Adoptions;

Adoption Center Plans on Expanding Its Global Outreach

(NEW YORK) ― The nation’s largest adoption and maternity services agency is celebrating a successful decade of service in China and launching a new initiative to expand its work to help more orphans find loving homes. The Gladney Center for Adoption is hosting a gala dinner at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, September 22, to formally launch the Gladney China Initiative. The event will also be a tribute to Gladney’s China Program Director Gongzhan Wu and all that he has done for creating new families through adoption. The venue is Time Warner’s new headquarters on Columbus Circle overlooking Central Park.

Gladney's China program is based in New York. Since its inception, Gladney has placed more than 700 Chinese infants and toddlers with loving families. “Not only does adopting internationally assist families in achieving their dream of parenthood,” said Wu. “It also fulfills the dream of children in orphanages and foster homes who eagerly await the love, stability, and warmth of being part of a family in a safe, loving environment”.

The objective of the China Initiative is to establish a $2 million endowment that will help achieve three goals:

• Place more children from China by underwriting Gladney’s China program.
  
  
• Establish post-adoption services for China families.
  
  
• Fund humanitarian programs for children in China who are not yet adopted and those who never will be.
  

In addition to providing permanent homes for these children, Gladney works with children’s welfare institutes in China to care for the needs of the babies and children there. The humanitarian aid that Gladney provides to orphans in China is critical to the agency’s mission of creating brighter futures for children. Over the past decade Gladney and Gladney China families have implemented programs to supply infant formulas to infants from a dozen of social welfare institutes, helped rebuild a flood-devastated orphanage in Jiangxi province, arranged for the donation of hundreds of thousands of pairs of children's shoes, and brought children for visits to the United States. Recently, Gladney has started an Award of Excellence program, which helps orphanage directors give incentives to – and hold onto – their best staff members. Beginning this year, the agency will also initiate an English language skills program, especially targeted to older children in social welfare institutes.

A History of Service

The Gladney Center's origins can be traced back to 1887 when it was called the Texas Children's Home and Aid Society. The founder, Methodist minister Rev. I.Z.T. Morris, assisted young abandoned children in Fort Worth by finding families who would adopt them. During the leadership of Edna Gladney, Superintendent from 1927-1960, the organization evolved into a comprehensive maternity home and adoption center. The name of the agency was changed to The Gladney Center in honor of Mrs. Gladney’s dedicated service.

Since its inception, Gladney has placed more than 27,000 babies and children into loving homes and helped guide more than 36,000 birth mothers through an extremely difficult and challenging time in their lives.

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