“And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh.”  Matt. 2:11

Happy Holidays to all of our families and friends,   

We hope this letter finds you looking forward to a joyous holiday season.  The staff at AIM is entering into the season with excitement and anticipation.  Being a part of your lives is a blessing to us all through the year….but, especially during the holidays.  We are all busy during the year and seldom find time to make a call or drop a line to let others know we are thinking about them.  This time of year, you take time!  You call, you write, you stop by, you attend AIM holiday parties.  And, we are thrilled by each word, each note, each chance to hear all of your news.   We especially look forward to seeing you at our holiday party on Saturday, December 6^th.   Again this year, we will be hosting the party at the Kinsmen Lutheran Church on 12100 Champion Forest Drive in Northwest Houston.

 The Lord has provided another phenomenal year for AIM.  We have been blessed with participating in the building of 70 families since the last holiday season.  As you can probably figure out, the annual number of adoptive placements directly impacts the number of biological families that will need assistance through the holidays.  Last year, we helped approximately 122 biological families with some holiday assistance.  The assistance included:  Thanksgiving dinner makings, Christmas trees and decorations, gifts and wrap for the minor children of birth mothers who were planning an adoption or mothers who had completed an adoption plan.  Holiday assistance is never limited to current birth families because we remain in contact with a significant number of clients who know that they can contact AIM during the holidays for help.  With this in mind, the possibility of the birth mother of YOUR child being blessed by our help…is a high possibility.    

We need your financial support during the holidays!

The support we receive each year from you is phenomenal!  We are proud to say that our families are the best!  The most responsive!  The most caring!  The most generous!  Again this year, we are attaching a self-addressed envelope for families who wish to help us provide for our clients during the holiday season…and throughout the year.  Your check will be deposited into a separate account, in a separate bank, specifically for financial donations.  We use funds from this account, called the Families In Motion account, to cover the cost of the agency family holiday party and the family picnic in the Spring.  We also use the funds to cover the cost of Thanksgiving  and Christmas dinner food items for clients and for all holiday needs for our birth families.  The funds that remain in the account following the holiday season are used for client needs that are not covered in the general fund.  Texas Family Code and our licensing department does not allow us to use money from the general fund to pay for GED classes and testing, diapers for the toddler children of our clients, dental work, etc.  When funds allow, the FIM account provides for office technological needs and  improvements.  Your holiday financial contribution accounts for 93% of annual funds in the FIM account.   

Your efforts count!

Please don’t read this letter, feel motivated to help, lay the letter down, and get too busy to do anything.  We realize you receive many requests for help during the holidays….it’s the “giving season” after all.  Most of those requests are met by rote….you just do it because it is automatic.  You’ve always done it.  You never really thought about it.  We want you to think about our request.  Our request is for assistance in providing for someone who may have made the most monumental difference in your life…the birth mother of your child.  Wouldn’t it be a shame if she and her children went without this year?  Maybe she won’t do without…but someone just like her may need our help.  We can’t do it without you.  Please prayerfully consider what you would do this year to help us provide a joyful holiday season for our clients and their children.

We need your time!

In addition to financial assistance, we will need more man hours than ever to

provide  the holiday  party for clients.   We expect 100+ clients to attend. The

party is scheduled  for  December 12^th  and will be held at the   St. Matthews

Lutheran Church at 21434 East Hardy just 1½ miles from the AIM office.  We

need families to help  decorate the room,  prepare  and  serve  the food, and

clean-up.   Annnnnd,  the biggest need of all…...the garage sale!    Each year

we collect thousands of pieces of used clothing, toys, decorations, household

goods, etc.   At the client holiday party, we set up the  garage  sale and allow

the clients to take anything that they need.   There is no charge for the things

they choose.  We are already receiving calls from clients who want to be assured

that we are having the “free” garage sale.  It takes a lot of hard work to provide

provide the garage sale.   All year, we collect items, sort , pack, and store items. 

The day before the party (which will be December the 12^th) we need as many

people as possible to help collect the items from the storage unit and deliver them to the church.  Then, we need people to unpack and organize the items.  We will be working on this project from 8am until midnight the day before the party.  We need approximately 50 persons (willing to give us 3 hours) and 5 pick-up trucks to help.  We need at least 5 of the volunteers to be men.

 Specific ways you can help:

q       Ask your scout group, Sunday school class, ladies club, play group, or men’s club to volunteer their time to help set up, run, and clean-up the garage sale.

q       Collect Turkey Bucks for client Thanksgiving/Christmas dinners.

q       Hold a toy drive for new toy items in your neighborhood…we provide Christmas gifts for approximately 65 children each year.  The children range in age from 1 year to 18 years.

q       Ask your employer if they match your financial donation to a charity organization.

q       Ask your employer about grants that are available to non-profit organizations.

q       Don’t need another tie? …ask Aunt Martha to make a financial donation in your, your family’s, or your child’s  name to AIM instead.

q       Have a family reunion at the AIM office, invite your sisters/sisters-in-law/mother/aunt to join you in volunteering a day at the office wrapping gifts for clients…we wrap approximately 800 gifts. 

q       Decorate a cardboard box in holiday wrap, put a sign on it asking for donations of coloring books & 24 count packages of crayons.  Place the box on or near your desk at work.  We wrap 100 of each and include in the client’s Christmas bag.

q       You could do the same thing in your Sunday School class and ask for donations of scented voltive candles.  We wrap 100 packages.

q       Make another box for your spouse’s desk….ask for ladies slipper socks….yep!  another 100 to wrap.

q       Collect Christmas paper wrap.

q       There are a lot of AIM teens among you.  We are in our 19^th year!  Why not have a mother/daughter volunteer day at the office….and a father/son volunteer evening (December 11^th to set up or December 12^th to clean-up sounds good) at the church!  What a way to let your child know that you appreciate the person his or her birth mother is….birth mothers are in general!  Oh, the father/son or mother/daughter thing would work to help get the office and storage room back together after the client party, too.

q       Buy one of those wonderful new fiber-optic trees for your home…and donate the old one to AIM.  We provide trees, lights, and décor to 20+ birth families.

 A painless way to give throughout the year.

Don’t forget to keep using your Kroger Share Card…Remarkable Randall’s Card…and your Gerland’s Rebate Card Donation opportunities.  Buy at these stores…and use your cards.  We get approximately $1200 a year from these stores as a result of you purchasing from them and using our name.  If you don’t have a card…get one, laminate and use when you grocery shop.  Also, if you shop at Safeway, ask them about their program…or any grocery store!

The Silent Auction was a really nice fundraiser for our FIM account last year.

Lets see if you can top your efforts with this year’s auction.  We need donations for the auction…tickets to sporting events or fine arts performances, a week-end at a condo, piece of furniture, hand-made item, dinner for two at a nice restaurant, haircut, jewelry, etc.  Last year, Elizabeth and John’s beach house  donation was so popular that they sold it twice!  Watch our website for updates on our auction items…you can get an idea of what you will want to bid on If you can help with a donation, please contact Elizabeth at donnelly@pdq.net  or bring your auction item by the office before December 1^st.  And, don’t forget to take a minute to say “Hi” when you stop by the office during the holidays.

Bundles from Heaven:

No AIM newsletter would be complete without sharing the joyful news of each

child’s uniting with  his or her family.     The holiday letter is no exception even

though  we just  sent  out a  newsletter  in early  October  including  all  of  the 

happy families up until then. So, help us congratulate…

            Rick and Debbie with Kellen                  Mart and Tonya with Abby

            Bobby and Karen with Livvey                 Tim and Stacie with Mark

            Jon and Melissa with Michelle                Ryan and Amanda with Emily

            Taylor and Lisa with Hannah                   Susan with Gabriel

We want to thank all of those who prayed for Bette during her recent surgery…as well as  those who prayed for US while we tried to get along without her.  She is back to work and we have a new appreciation for her.  

 Dee has been all tied up lately with a new man in her life…her cardiologist!  She is now recovering from a bypass surgery and we miss her A LOT!  Hopefully, she will be back to work real soon.  In the mean time, families who wish to send cards, you can do so to our office and we will see she gets them.

One of our websites, www.agencyadoptioncentral.com, is dedicated to presenting the thoughts of those persons involved in the adoption process…birth families, children of adoption, and adoptive parents.  If you have an enjoyment for writing, please consider sending us a copy of something you wrote about your experience, your feelings, etc.  If you do not have access to a computer, please mail us what you write.  We’ll re-type it and publish it on our site.  If you would like to send a picture, we can include it with the writing.  Your contribution can either be a letter to your child, to your birth family, or to the agency.  It could be a poem.  It could be a story written by you or your child.  If you or your child draw, it could be a drawing about feelings that we can scan and put on the site.  Works of art by your child would be another positive contribution. 

And, in conclusion…a reminder from Charlotte and Bette:

Don’t forget to stop by during the holidays!  We want to see you!  Until then, take care.  We love you.  We wish you and yours a blessed holiday season.

Jan, Alan, Bette, Charlotte, Renee,

Malinda, Dee, Melissa, Lana, Denise, Kelly, Ron, and Anne