We serve adoptive families by sending them on all-expenses-paid Walt Disney World vacations to strengthen bonds, build community, and provide restoration.
But why?
So often, after adoptions have been finalized, those on the outside looking in see “happily ever after,” but this is not the case.
Every adoption story is centered around loss. Every adoption story has experienced trauma on some level. Supporting adoptees and adoptive families post-placement is incredibly important.
We believe it’s crucial for an adoptee to bond with their family; to feel a sense of belonging, identity, and love. We believe bonds are built best when families are having fun together. Walt Disney did, too.
This is what our Funding Love Families have said:
What does a Funding Love Adoptive Family Vacation Include?
REad their stories below!
The Hutchison Family
We always felt that our family was meant to come together through adoption. That feeling grew stronger and stronger as we started noticing just how many adoption stories were already around us through friends, family, work and of course Disney characters! We started our journey through the foster care system and had seven amazing kids, each of whom were ultimately reunified with their families in the end. Even though we always knew reunification was the end goal in foster care, and even though we know their lives had changed for the better, there was still so much grief and loss when they left. It never got easier but we realized that we were only ever meant to play a small part of each other's stories, and that every heartbreak was pulling us closer and closer to the forever family we knew we'd find. We didn't know who they were or what they would look like, what their ages or favorite colors or foods were, nothing...but we knew we were getting closer.
Right before the Thanksgiving of 2020, when our final foster siblings went home pretty suddenly, I made a post on Facebook all about Jesse and I, our home, and our desire to find our forever family. We filled it with a collage of pictures and asked our friends and family to share it, and it took off. We'd had several possibilities that didn't pan out before, and had unfortunately also experienced adoption scammers, so when a friend reached out mid December with the news that she knew of a woman expecting triplets, we honestly thought it too was a scam. Curiosity got the better of us though, and when we started messaging anonymously through a friend of the biological mothers we were even more intrigued that she seemed genuine, and had not asked for money or credit card info! Conversation quickly jumped to direct communication with the woman, who was only in her 28th week of pregnancy, and the excitement began rising until.....nothing. Complete radio silence left us scared and disappointed that she'd changed her mind or that we'd somehow scared her off. We tried to focus on Christmas, when we got another call, just over a week from that initial contact asking if we would even consider adopting triplets. Our tummy mom had gone into emergency labor, and at 29 weeks the NICU had three micro preemie infants delivered just in time for Christmas. The joy of COVID-19 meant we could not enter the hospital until she was released and we had legal paperwork in hand, so the race was on to drag our poor attorney out at Christmas. I remember meeting her and her family members on the day she was released from the hospital, all of us sobbing and crying together as we realized they had needed us just as badly as we had needed her. She wanted us to name our babies, to pick family names that meant a lot to us...and we laughed to learn that both of our families traditionally passed middle names down through girls, and that she and I had the SAME middle name. We were suddenly scrubbing down and dawning biosecurity garb, walking through the NICU entrance, and... being bombarded with a swarm of angry hospital employees?! The nurses in the NICU unit had become very protective over the tiny little babies currently labeled "A, B and C" having been given zero information about the future of their small charges. Once we explained that we were the adoptive parents however, the entire hospital seemed to explode into cheers and applause...and all of a sudden everything in the world seemed to click into place. All the struggles, heartbreak, hope, loss, fear, waiting, grief......just made sense. The journey taught us to fall apart and push forward anyway, shaping and leading us to the three people, Henry, Hayden and Holly HUTCHISON, that we now could never imagine our lives without. How the stars lined up to bring our family together, as vast as the universe is, still amazes me, but it's hard to believe there wasn't a little bit of magic in making our happily ever after wildest dreams come true.
Jesse and I always knew we were meant to find our forever family through adoption, but never in our wildest dreams or imaginations could we have guessed that our story would bring us the three most hilarious, creative, brave, and intelligent people that are now ours, forever. We never expected that all of our family trees would twist and enter-twine together to create truly genuine and loving relationships with their biological families. We never expected so many constant little reminders that things just had to be destined from the start, like the matching birthmark my husband and daughter share behind their knee, or the same cowlicks, pinky toes, mannerisms and love for adventure. We never expected we'd be celebrating birthdays with biological cousins or having family camping trips with their biological brother's family, yet our kids get to grow up in a life where blended families and adoption are such a positive, normal parts of life and there is absolutely no shortage of people who love them.
The King Family
Grace and Cody have a firm belief that everyone has a role in foster care- financial support, careers in the field, foster family, adoptive family, community volunteer, respite provider, etc. Grace and Cody chatted a lot about discovering their role in the foster community and came to the conclusion they were to be an adoptive resource for an older child. On an absolutely random day, an old friend sent Grace a Facebook message asking if she was still open to growing her family through adoption. It caught Grace and Cody off guard at that moment, but they were interested in learning more. The friend shared that there were two incredible foster boys (8 and 11) that were in need of a permenant placement/adoptive resource. Although Grace and Cody weren't actively looking to grow their family through adoption at that moment, something just felt right. They decided to casually meet up with the foster family to meet the boys. As Cody and Grace got in the car to leave, they both knew right away that they were meant to walk alongside Bryce and Brayden in life. They got their foster care license, approved as an adoptive resource, and moved the boys into their home July 2022. The King family went through two years of fostering; however, Bryce and Brayden became official Kings 8/6/24! Adoption of older children have taught Grace and Cody that adoption is equal parts joy and grief. Many people make comments such as "the boys are so blessed to be part of your family," but Grace and Cody know that they are the blessed ones. To walk alongside Bryce and Brayden ( two incredible, resilient, goofy, smart boys) through life's highs and lows is such an honor and privilege.
The Snizek
We made a decision to adopt a child from New York City foster care right after my hysterectomy surgery due to endometrial cancer in 2017, caused by Lynch syndrome, a rare autosomal dominant genetic condition. After we became certified foster parents, we received a phone call from our agency on a Wednesday. A baby boy was just born to a homeless mother in the Bronx, who tested positive for cocaine and marijuana at the time of birth. We did not hesitate; immediately said yes we would take him. A baby boy was scheduled to arrive on that Friday (2 day after the phone call). That evening, we went shopping at Target in Manhattan. We had initially requested a child 3 years old or older, so we had nothing for a newborn baby at home. We didn’t have time to think. We bought everything we saw in the store and everything we thought of. We walked home carrying as much as we could. We dropped off everything in our apartment in Manhattan, then we decided to go back to Target and repeated the process. On that Friday evening, Kayden finally arrived. A miracle happened and our dreams had come true. The adoption process took almost 4 years. It was a long, stressful journey, not knowing if we could keep Kayden in our home for good. His biological mother kept disappearing and then kept coming back. We never knew when she would return. At the end, she never came back and Kayden was ours forever.
The Dillon Family
We always knew our family would grow in different ways and after adopting our daughter privately we were forever changed by that experience. We're a family of faith and knew God was wanting to show us more about His love than what we knew at that point. It became clear that it was more than just us growing our family, it was also about family units and being apart of supporting and loving not only the children involved but their biological parents and extended family. That lead us to become licensed foster parents. We fostered several children before our son came to us and after three long years he officially shares our last name.
The Doyle Family
I have been an elementary school teacher for over ten years, and I have always had a heart for foster care and adoption. In 2020, the door was opened for me to begin fostering. I have had a total of ten children in my home, some for just a day or two, and others for longer. In November of 2021, I received a phone call asking if I could care for two two-year-olds for "just a weekend." We enjoyed an eventful weekend together, and I dropped them off with a social worker the following Monday. By Monday afternoon, I was notified that plans had changed and was asked if Jason and Bethani could return to my home. They have been with me ever since! When reunification was no longer an option, I was given the opportunity to adopt Jason and Bethani. After almost exactly two years in foster care, their adoption was finalized in November of 2023. I could not imagine life without these two! They are funny, inquisitive, observant, and kind! Every day is a new adventure! I am so thankful for the opportunity to be their mama!
Funding Love is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit. Tax ID: 83-0769251