A Day of Awareness and Prayer
Join Connecticut’s 4th annual weekend of prayer for children in foster care. During the weekend of November 2-4th, faith communities will pledge to remember Connecticut’s foster children and youth who wait for adoptive families. Will yours be one of them?

This November prayers will be offered and many bells will ring to raise awareness for the dozens of children waiting for a permanent home.

Every year, on the first weekend in November, faith communities across Connecticut join together to raise their voices in prayer and ring church bells for Connecticut's foster children waiting for permanent homes.

Faith communities are invited to participate by doing any combination of the following:

a) include the waiting children in prayer during services all weekend.
b) agreeing to ring church bells ON the first Sunday in November at 6 P.M. (Many faith communities invite an adoptive family to act as honorary bell-ringers.)
c) arrange for a candlelight vigil on a town green or other suitable venue.
d) host a service during the weekend to pray for the needs of the children and foster and adoptive families everywhere. Often, with advance notice, speakers can be made available to a congregation at no cost.
e) Invite foster and adoptive families to participate.
f) Invite the press to cover your event.

Foster and adoptive families can be invited to participate in their hometowns.

Press packets and information on adoption can be made available by sending a request at least 10 days before the event. Included will be an information packet to hand out to the general public at your event. If an adoptive family can be identified in the congregation who is willing to chair the event for that faith community, they will be given instructions and assistance from Bells of Hope volunteers.

Every year the bells toll once for every child waiting for a home, representing the children/youth for whom adoptive homes are actively being sought at this moment. In CT, an average of 65 requests are made each month to the Department of Children and Families' Adoption Resource Exchange for pre-adoptive families for children in the foster care system. Last year, State Fiscal Year 2011, 507 adoptions from foster care were finalized. During 2010 (SFY2010), 525 adoptions from foster care were finalized in CT and the year before 690. Every year, despite our best efforts, there remain children and youth for whom homes are not found. We offer prayer and toll the bells for these children.

To hear how we got started, read "Justin's Story". To view the partial list of children in need of permanent homes please visit the Connecticut "Adopt Us Kids" webpage.  http://www.adoptuskids.org/states/ct/browse.aspx 

Contact Us

Bells of Hope is one of Connecticut's statewide National Adoption Month initiatives. We need individual faith community members or groups to take the lead and coordinate this event in their local communities.  Contact information for Bells of Hope appears below.

www.bellsofhope.org
203-706-0101
deb@bellsofhope.org

If you would like to know more about becoming a foster or adoptive parent visit  http://www.fosteradoptivemission.org/contact/.