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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Making Mother’s Day – By Making Adoption Affordable

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Friday, May 10, 2013   

RALEIGH, N.C. – When a fertility clinic and all else fails, adoption can seem like the answer.

Except it's not in many cases.

Adoption is an expensive and lengthy process. It can take from $30-to-50,000 and two years or more.

That's where groups such as HelpUsAdopt.org come in. The national nonprofit has, in the last six years, helped build 73 families by awarding $570,000 dollars in adoption grants.

Becky Fawcett and her husband Kipp founded the group in response to their own experience.

"When I was struggling with infertility and miscarriages and wanted nothing more than to be a mother,” she recalls, “when Mother’s Day rolled around every year, it was one of the most painful days of the year."

Fawcett says the group is set apart from others by focusing on nondiscrimination, not defining what a family is, not charging applicants to apply and giving out the largest grants – up to $15,000.

Caroline Edgerton lost her husband and infant son in an accident in 2007. A grant from HelpUsAdopt.org helped her to close a financial gap and adopt a son, Logan.

"I was very fearful,” she says. “I didn't know if I would be able to afford it and do it on my own and make that dream happen. And now I know that there are resources and there's a lot of support out there that is available."

Fawcett, and a committee of five, select grantees, looking for people who are making every effort to pay for their adoption themselves but are coming up short. She says she spends most of the rest of her time looking for donors.

"We have about 800 people a year who apply with financial requests over $6 million dollars,” she says. “And we have $200,000 to give away this year."

Caroline Edgerton says the organization has remained in the lives of her and Logan.

"It wasn't just, 'Here's your grant, congratulations, move forward,'” she says. “Logan is now 15 months old and they've just touched our lives in such an amazing way."

Families helped by the group since 2007 include heterosexual married couples, single parents – male and female – and LGBT couples.





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