CRADLE Events - The Cradle

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AUTUMN MOON | Festival Nearly 200 Cradle and Family Resource Center parents, children and friends gathered at Oakton Community College in Des Plaines on Sunday afternoon, October 8, to celebrate Autumn Moon Festival. A popular, family-focused holiday observed throughout Asia, Autumn Moon marks the end of the harvest season and has long been an occasion to give thanks for the bounty of the land. Planned especially for families with children from China, Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia and Taiwan, The Cradle’s Autumn Moon Festival incorporates traditions from various Asian countries. The children, many in traditional dress, participated in cultural games, activities and crafts including Vietnamese silk painting, origami, Chinese mask making and folding Korean fans. The Chicago North Chinese School entertained guests with traditional dances, martial arts demonstrations and a joyful lion dance and lantern parade. Festival participants also enjoyed a delicious Asian appetizer buffet. Top: The children receive a martial arts lesson. Above: Emily Mitchell, 4, wearing a traditional Vietnamese ao dai (dress) and non la (hat), enjoys the festivities at Autumn Moon 2006. 4 The Cradle Newsletter Autumn Moon Festival is an annual event sponsored by Cradle Connections, a program that works to strengthen friendships and support between Cradle adoptive families. We would like to thank volunteer committee members Carole Braverman, Siobhan Flynn, Andi Herchenbach, Mary Jo O’Donnell, Deb Sawyer and Bobbi Ann Fulk for helping to organize this year’s festival. Special thanks to 6-year-old Renata Fulk for bringing her piggy bank to donate to the babies in the Nursery! Her mom believes that events such as Autumn Moon are a great way to expose Renata to some of her country’s traditions. “By celebrating and embracing Renata’s ethnic culture, we are helping to instill her with pride and knowledge of her origins, and also showing her it is something we value and enjoy as a family,” said Bobbi Ann. “We are learning more and more about Chinese culture, and by accepting and celebrating these traditions, it shows our daughter that we embrace cultures that are different than those we were raised within.”
SIRAGUSA SCHOLARSHIPS For Families with Kids with Special Needs In October, The Cradle Foundation mailed Siragusa Scholarship applications to all Cradle families who have adopted children with special needs and to every family who has adopted a child since 1990 (recognizing that special needs may arise long after a placement). If you would like to apply for a scholarship on behalf of your child, we ask that you please fax or send your application to The Cradle by Friday, December 8. The Siragusa Scholarship Fund for Special Needs Adoptive Families has enabled The Cradle to award small grants totaling more than $96,000 to 75 Cradle families over the past six years. Thanks to a generous grant this year from the Topfer Family Foundation, our pool of available funds for 2007 has doubled. Scholarship recipients will be announced by the end of January 2007. If you have any questions, or if you did not receive an application and would like one sent to you, please contact Heidi Bloom in the Foundation office at 847-733-3240 or e-mail hbloom@cradle.org. Fax: 847-475-5871. THE CRADLE FAMILY LEGACY PROGRAM During the last eighty years, planned gifts have helped improve the lives of thousands of Cradle children and their families. Most planned gifts are simple to create. They can help you solve certain income and tax challenges, sometimes right away. Now is a great time for you to make a planned gift! IRA Charitable Giving – A New Possibility Individuals who are aged 70.5 and older may now direct gifts to The Cradle directly from their IRA without paying income tax on the withdrawal. Use your minimum required IRA withdrawal for this purpose and you may gain other tax-related benefits. Why not make your charitable gift this year with the equivalent of pre-tax dollars The law governing these gifts expires in 2007, so don’t put it off – you can benefit now and next year too! Charitable Gift Annuities (CGA) Please consider a CGA before you sell that appreciated asset to generate annual income. This type of gift will transform that asset into a charitable gift that provides you with annual income at competitive rates of interest and terrific tax benefits. THE W.P & H.B WHITE FOUNDATION A Decade of Support For the tenth consecutive year, The Cradle has received a generous grant from the W.P. and H.B. White Foundation in support of our Nursery and Special Needs Infant Care Program. We are very grateful for the Foundation’s longstanding commitment to the babies in the Nursery. William P. White, along with his two brothers, founded the White Cap Company in 1926 in an old box factory on Goose Island in the Chicago River. White Cap, a manufacturer and designer of caps and closures for the food industry, invented and patented vacuum-sealed bottle caps and pioneered the twist-off style of closure. Besides being innovators, the White brothers were known to be outstanding employers, offering good pay and job security, loaning money to workers in need, and providing a free hot lunch for all salaried employees. In the early days of the company, William’s wife Hazel would prepare and serve lunch every day for the employees in the Goose Island facility. The Whites established a charitable foundation in 1953 “to give back to the community in which his business prospered and his employees lived,” said foundation Executive Director M. Margaret Blandford. Today, the W.P. and H.B. White foundation provides funding to many educational, social service and health care organizations in the Chicago metropolitan area, with an emphasis on helping those most in need. In the award letter The Cradle received with our September 2006 grant, Ms. Blandford writes, “the Board’s deliberations focused on how valuable your hard work is to assuring a better life for those you serve as well as the future good of the country.” The Cradle’s onsite Nursery, in existence since 1923, enables us to offer every baby entrusted to us the best possible start in life and a chance for a healthier future. We thank the W.P. & H.B. White Foundation for their continuing friendship and support. Call Jenny Merdinger at (847) 448-8752 for details. Remember to discuss any planned giving idea with your professional advisors prior to making a gift.
Page 1 and 2: L a t e F a l l | 2 0 0 6 THE CRADL
Page 3: NOTEWORTHY CRADLE FAMILIES FEATURED
Page 7 and 8: Left: This smiling group includes,
Page 9 and 10: AUCTION, RAFFLE & SPECIAL PRIZE DON
Page 11 and 12: EDUCATING l The Community CRADLE l

CRADLE Events - The Cradle

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