Fundraising efforts

As many of you know, the adoption process is very expensive. While we are confident we can raise our child, we will be needing to raise a lot of money to bring our child home. Some things we plan on doing to raise money will be selling items on Ebay, Craigslist, and Etsy, having a huge garage sale, holding a craft fair, bake sale, collecting pop cans, car washes, and I'm sure more ideas will come to light. It will be a busy year or so trying to raise enough money.

How you can help. Both Tim and myself find it very difficult to ask for help when it comes to money. In this case, we have realized, it really will take a village to help bring him or her home to us and could really use all the help you are willing to give us.

* If you live in the Phoenix area, we could use items for our garage sale, which I'm hoping to hold in September or October. If you are going through your stuff, please consider letting us have it rather than throwing it away or giving it to Goodwill. We will be glad to come and pick it up from you. It can be small items or big items, even though it will be a few months until we will hold the sale, I would love collecting as much as possible as early as possible. If they are nicer items, I may sell them on Ebay rather than the sale.

* If you live in the San Tan Valley/Queen Creek area, we would love to recycle your cans. We know cans don't bring in very much money, therefore we don't think it would be wise to run all over the valley picking up cans. However, if you are donating items to our sale and live further out, we will be out there to collect those items anyways, so please collect some cans for us too and we can make it a one stop shop.

* If you live in the Phoenix area, please consider helping us out with planning and organizing events. All help would be greatly appreciated as I'm still trying to figure out where to begin with events like the craft fair.

*If you live elsewhere, and in the valley, we could really use your support as well. We will shortly have a 300 or so piece puzzle on this blog. There will be more information on this puzzle once we have selected one. You will be able to sponsor a puzzle piece for a set amount. On the back of your piece(s) we will write your name. Once the puzzle is completed it will be put into an all glass frame (front and back) and hang in his or her room. They will be able to look at the back and see everyone's names that helped bring them home. You will also be able to send us the money via mail to avoid having a percentage taken out due to Paypal fees.

*No matter where you live, we will also set up a donate button. Please feel free to donate anything you can. Big and small donations will go a long way and we can't begin to thank you enough for any help you can give. You will also be able to send us the money via mail to avoid having a percentage taken out due to Paypal fees.

*No matter where you live, please consider buying gifts from my Etsy shop. 100% of the proceeds will be going towards our fund. http://www.etsy.com/shop/heartfelthandikraftz I will continue to add more items to the shop and I'm always happy to do custom orders. I can send the purchased items either to you directly or to the recipient.

*If you live in Philadelphia or Chicago, please consider holding some kind of event. We have a lot of friends and family in those two cities and it may be possible to have some get together. I would definitely help out by phone and emails, so if you could do something like that, please contact us and we can try to make it happen.

*For everyone, we understand not everyone can help with monetary donations, donating items to us, or helping with events. What we do ask for, is for you to keep us in your thoughts. It will be a lot of hard work ahead of us and we hope you can support us with thoughts and following our blog with updates.

We appreciate any additional ideas you may have. Please follow along on our journey and we will keep this blog up to date.

Thank you,
Tim and Tracy