[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Page 8804]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          RECOGNIZING THE DAVE THOMAS FOUNDATION FOR ADOPTION

 Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, as cochair of both the 
Congressional Coalition on Adoption and the Senate Caucus on Foster 
Youth, I wish to congratulate the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption 
on the occasion of its 20th anniversary.
  The foundation was established in 1992 by Dave Thomas as a public 
charity with one primary goal: to help every child in foster care find 
a loving, permanent family. Throughout its history, the foundation has 
set forth on a mission of dramatically increasing the number of 
adoptions of waiting children.
  For 20 years, the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption has committed 
itself to finding permanent families for the more than 100,000 children 
waiting in the United States foster care system.
  The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption awards grants to public and 
private adoption agencies all across the country. Last year, these 
grants totaled more than $8 million and focused on supporting adoption 
professionals who implement proactive, child-focused recruitment 
programs targeted exclusively on moving the longest waiting children 
from foster care into adoptive families. This signature program is 
called Wendy's Wonderful Kids, WWK, and today exists in all 50 States, 
DC, and four Canadian provinces.
  The results from an empirical 5-year case study on WWK were released 
in October 2011. The research showed that children in the program are 
up to three times more likely to be adopted.
  The foundation also supports employers through the Adoption-Friendly 
Workplace Program, is a founding member of National Adoption Day, and 
is a proud partner of the annual television special, ``A Home for the 
Holidays.''
  The foundation is an accredited charity of the Better Business Bureau 
Wise Giving Alliance, Standards for Excellence certified, and has 
received the highest possible rating on Charity Navigator. The 
foundation has helped more than 3,000 children find their forever 
families and provided information and support to tens of thousands of 
potential adoptive families.
  For these reasons, I am proud to applaud the Dave Thomas Foundation 
for Adoption and its dedicated staff for their extraordinary 
contributions to the people of my district and throughout the United 
States for the last 20 years.

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