News
Coming 5/1/10: A Celebration of Women Touched by Adoption
March 1, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Saturday, May 1: Event Celebrates Women Touched by Adoption
Open to the public, gathering honors adult adoptees and their birth/adoptive mothers, grandmothers
CINCINNATI (March 1, 2010)—Recognizing and honoring adult adoptees and their birth mothers, adoptive mothers, and birth and adoptive grandmothers, A Celebration of Women Touched by Adoption will be held on Saturday, May 1, 2010. Presented by Celebrate Adoption, a Cincinnati-area network of families touched by adoption, the event is from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. It will be located in the Evendale Recreation Center, 10500 Reading Road, Evendale, Ohio 45241.
The event is free and open to the public, however, advance registration is required. To register, please call Patty Bonem, event chair at 513-733-3808 or send an email to jesse_doggie@yahoo.com.
“This event honors the triad of adoption: birthmothers, adoptive mothers and the adopted child,” says Patty Bonem, LISW, Celebrate Adoption’s professional facilitator. “Adoptive families are built out of both loss and joy, and this event is a chance for women to come together with others who understand and celebrate the miracle of adoption, particularly close to Mother’s Day.”
Held annually, the event includes refreshments and a brief ceremony with adoption poetry and music. Participants are encouraged to bring family photos—framed or unframed—to share. The photos will be returned at the conclusion of the event. Attire is dressy-casual.
“The event is geared to adult women whose lives have been touched by adoption,” explains Celebrate Adoption member Julie Eshman, a mother by adoption to two children. “We welcome birth mothers, birth grandmothers, adoptive mothers, adoptive grandmothers and adult adoptees to share their stories and honor their connections.”
Past participants have included families in open, domestic adoptions—where birth and adoptive families maintain varying degrees of communication—as well as adoptive mothers in international and closed domestic adoptions, where information about birth families might be sparse or nonexistent.
Eshman has attended the event in the past with her own mother, as well as her daughter’s birth mother and birth grandmother. “Although we maintain an open adoption relationship, the event is a beautiful way for me to formally express my appreciation to my daughter’s birth family for their decision to pursue adoption.”
Conversely, for Celebrate Adoption member Christine Traficanti whose two daughters were adopted from China, the gathering holds a different appeal. “The event offers me the chance to honor my girls’ birthmothers—women I never met but admire greatly—and their courageous choice to make an adoption plan for their children,” she says.
For more information, or to register to attend the event, please call 513-733-3808.
