February 9, 2024 • 13 mins
Scotty and Hannah talk to Christey Benson about financial aid for families wanting to adopt
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to Carolina Cares Scottie Blaisdell withHannah Tyler, and we welcome a new
face to Carolina Cares this week,and this is Christy Benson. She's the
founder and executive director of Plead forPrivilege. And in a nutshell, what
is Plead for Privilege? Christy?We want to help families who are adopting.
(00:20):
We want to help them financially,help them through fundraisers, through grants,
just so they don't have to comeup with all the money themselves,
because it can be very expensive.Yeah, I've never looked into that,
so I didn't realize that. Alot of times you think about what life
is going to be like with anextra person, but the actual process of
getting into the adoption system, Imean, is there a way to kind
(00:43):
of quantify that? How much moneyare we talking about? On average,
it's between forty and sixty to sixtyfive thousand dollars depending on and that is
domestic, international can be even morethan that. And where is that cost?
It goes to the fees, theadoption agency, the lawyers, home
(01:06):
studies, finger prints and the longerthat families wait, these things can expire,
so then they have to pay andredo them again. Now, Christy,
I so often here, Oh,I'm adopting. What's that process?
Like? There's so much behind it? Right. The first thing that a
family usually has to do is findif they want to do domestic or international,
(01:30):
and then it's which agency they wantto go with which best fits their
needs as a family. So it'sa lot of steps to get started.
And then you have to do youknow, background check, home studies,
finger prints, and that's just tobegin. So I'm sure in the background
check on you and your significant otherand the living situation, I'm sure there's
(01:53):
there will be people that will comeover and see what the house is like,
that sort of stuff, right,And once all of that gets passed
by the state, then it proceedsto the matching phase, so the parents
can look through the potential birth momsand children that are being born, and
then the birth mom sometimes will wantto also choose who the adoptive parents are.
(02:20):
Sometimes it can go either way,like sometimes it gets an open adoption
or a closed one. What isit that? And I know there's a
ton of answers to this question,but maybe some of the reasons that children
are put up for adoption. Itcan be a whole host of reasons.
The main one I think is justthat the birth mom birth parents could be
(02:42):
young. They don't feel like they'reready to welcome a child into their home.
But then they want to also knowthat their child is going to a
good family, So that's where theywill also want to pick who the adopting
family is. Sometimes they want childrenalready in the family. Sometimes they don't.
(03:04):
Sometimes they will choose that there's nobiological children. Some birth families,
that doesn't matter to them. Theywant they want their child to have siblings.
So there's a lot of reasons.Yeah, no, Christy, what's
the average link for let's just saya domestic adoption. Oh, goodness,
a domestic adoption. I have workedwith two families and they were able to
(03:25):
actually be at the hospital when thechild was born, like in the waiting
room. And then I have afamily that I've worked with and they were
waiting three plus years. Wow.So but that one was international. But
you just never know, Like theprivate adoptions sometimes go the quickest because you
(03:46):
have a nine month timeframe, butyou just you never know. I don't
remember the exact country, but Ihad a friend a couple friend that had
decided to go international, had gonethrough all of it, and then last
minute something happened on that side.I don't know if it was something to
(04:08):
do with the family from the Asiancountry or if it was the country itself,
But there's so many it seems likeroadblocks that can come up in the
process. Yes, there are,and there's always the birth mom could change
your mind. That's always a riskas well. But the international adoption,
(04:29):
they can string it out a littlebit because you have to go there.
There's one family that I worked withand they were adopting twins from twin daughters
from Liberia, and once they gotthere they got to meet them, but
then it was like between the embassiesand the visas. They were there for
(04:50):
seventy days in Liberia waiting. Andthe other thing is that once you're there
and you've met your kids and you'veseen them face to face and you're starting
to bond with them, you can'tleave the country until the visas with them.
But you don't want to leave andcome home and leave them there.
(05:15):
So that's the other thing with theinternational that families can run into is that
they have to get home and workthey have kids at home potentially waiting for
them, but they don't want toleave their adoptive children there. Now,
I know you guys provide financial support, but adoptions, let's just say,
(05:38):
internationally, can be so crazy becauselaws are different, how countries operate are
different. Do you guys provide resourcesto help make that process easier for families
as well? We don't. Thatusually falls under the adoption agency. We
are just there to try to helpalleviate the burden of the funds. I
(05:59):
have to talk to a lot ofpeople and the reason that they've backed away
from adoption is the financial cost.And that makes me sad to think that
there are families that could welcome childrenand children that need families and the main
hindrance is money. We're talking toChristy Benson, she's with Plead for Privilege.
That's the number four if you're lookingit up, and we're talking about
(06:23):
adoption, and I'm learning things.I had no clue about how long this
took or how expensive it was.And one of your goals is to be
able to alleviate that financial stress.How do you do that? How do
you raise these funds to be ableto help these potential adoptive parents. Well,
one way we do is we aretrying to get monthly supporters. You
(06:44):
can choose to give however much,but that way there's money on hand to
help the families get through the beginningstages, the fingerprints, the home studies,
those beginning steps, because with everystep of adoption there's a fee.
You never have to write a checkfor, like the forty thousand dollars,
but there's fees along the way andyou have to pay for it. So
(07:08):
with our monthly donors, we wantto have money on hand to be able
to do that. Then at thevery end, there is a placement fee,
and that could be fifteen to twentyfive thousand dollars. That it's like
when the baby is placed in yourarms, you owe the fee. And
so with that we try to dofundraisers. We've done a dinner fundraiser,
(07:29):
We've done a silent auction fundraiser,We've done a puzzle fundraiser which has been
very successful, and that just bringsin a large sum of money all at
one time, so they have itthere for the placement fee. You know,
I'm curious if you and maybe youdon't know this exact number, but
in our local area here, howmany kids are needing that adoptive parent to
(07:51):
step in right now? It wouldsurprise you how many kids. The main
thing that got my attention is thatthe number of children that are waiting to
be adopted versus the churches in ourarea is almost the same. Wow.
(08:13):
Yeah. So my heart is thatif we could get a church to get
behind every one family in their churchfamily to buck them financially, emotionally,
physically, to take care of theirpets, to mow their yard, anything
(08:33):
like that. If we could getone church to get behind one family within
their church that the family feels supportedin every way, that would cause a
huge stint in the amount of kidswho needs to be adopted. That's an
interesting, very specific dream there.I never would have thought to equate that,
But I think sometimes we don't know, we don't know what the need
(08:54):
is, and how do we what'sthe first step. If someone's hearing this
and they're like, yeah, Iwant to do that, I want my
church to get involved, well,you can go to our website. It's
www. Dot plead for and it'sthe number four dot org. We want
to help churches be able to supporttheir members like if they know that there's
(09:15):
a member within their church that wouldlike to adopt, we want to give
resources to do that. The otherthing is just to if you see a
need, like there's needs all theway down, especially if you're going internationally,
there's going to be a parking fee, like once you get back and
you've left your car parked in thein the airport. I mean that could
(09:37):
be substantial if you're stuck somewhere forseventy days, just taking care of pets,
watering flowers, making sure that theirrefrigerator and their cupboards are stocked when
they get home, helping to babysitmaybe other kids so that they can bond
with the child that they're bringing home. There's just there's so many ways to
(09:58):
get involved. And then there's thefinancial way. Sometimes people want to be
like hands on and helping and thensometimes you know, people are like,
well, I just would like togive money, And either way is very
helpful to the families. And ifthere's a family listening today that's in the
process of adoption, are about tostart them and they do need financial assistance,
(10:18):
where I think can they get ahold of you at well, you
can get through the website. Okay, my email address is Christy at Pleadford
dot org. We do have anapplication that people can fill out on there,
and then I'd just like to talkto people. Not only do I
want to help them financially, butI want to sort of walk with them
(10:41):
through the process. There was onefamily who they were adopting domestically, but
it was an interstate so they hadto be away from their home, their
job for a few weeks and theyyou know, in the paperwork they got
they were there for a little bitlonger than they were expecting to be there.
(11:03):
They were in a hotel, theywere tired of eat and take out,
you know. So we were ableto come alongside and we got groceries
delivered to them from yeah, oneof those stempanies. Yeah, And so
we were able to get groceries deliveredto them so that they were able to
eat something fresh in their hotel room. So it's like, not only do
I want to help financially, butwe also like to just walk alongside.
(11:26):
What was it that drew you tothis as a passion because you have four
daughters, yes, and that seemslike a house full right there, and
you wanted everyone to experience parenthood.What is it that made you, I
don't know, get excited about it? Well, okay, so my husband
and I we tried to adopt oncewe were blessed with twins. They're nine
(11:50):
now, so we tried to adoptone time before they were born and it
did not work out. And thenwe tried to adopt internationally after they were
born, and that also the doorwas closed on that. So you know,
you get used to life and you'retrying to you know, raise kids
(12:11):
and everything, and then it waslike just God spoke to me and was
like, you know, just becauseyou can't adopt doesn't mean you can't do
something. So I just started toinvestigate, and I started to talk to
people who I knew had adopted orhad not, who had thought about it
(12:31):
and had not. And the reoccurringthing was the finances. So I was
just I knew a couple in mychurch who was adopting, so I talked
to her and I was like,hey, can I try a fundraiser,
like will will you be my guineapig? And she was like sure.
So it we did it and itwas successful, and so then we just
(12:52):
sort of rolled with it and developeda nonprofit in twenty twenty one. That's
awesome. I think you've put itme be in a way that helps all
of us feel like we can dosomething. Because maybe it's you can meet
needs by an active service and you'venamed out some very specific things there.
Maybe you have the ability to financesomebody else when you yourself couldn't be that
(13:15):
adoptive family. So either way youcan help out. And let's make sure
we mentioned the website again one moretime. It's plead for It is the
number p L E A D fourdot org and this is plead for Privilege.
Christy Benson, thanks so much foryour time and thanks for being here
for Carolina Cares. Yes, thankyou,
Welcome to Carolina Cares Scottie Blaisdell withHannah Tyler, and we welcome a new
face to Carolina Cares this week,and this is Christy Benson. She's the
founder and executive director of Plead forPrivilege. And in a nutshell, what
is Plead for Privilege? Christy?We want to help families who are adopting.
(00:20):
We want to help them financially,help them through fundraisers, through grants,
just so they don't have to comeup with all the money themselves,
because it can be very expensive.Yeah, I've never looked into that,
so I didn't realize that. Alot of times you think about what life
is going to be like with anextra person, but the actual process of
getting into the adoption system, Imean, is there a way to kind
(00:43):
of quantify that? How much moneyare we talking about? On average,
it's between forty and sixty to sixtyfive thousand dollars depending on and that is
domestic, international can be even morethan that. And where is that cost?
It goes to the fees, theadoption agency, the lawyers, home
(01:06):
studies, finger prints and the longerthat families wait, these things can expire,
so then they have to pay andredo them again. Now, Christy,
I so often here, Oh,I'm adopting. What's that process?
Like? There's so much behind it? Right. The first thing that a
family usually has to do is findif they want to do domestic or international,
(01:30):
and then it's which agency they wantto go with which best fits their
needs as a family. So it'sa lot of steps to get started.
And then you have to do youknow, background check, home studies,
finger prints, and that's just tobegin. So I'm sure in the background
check on you and your significant otherand the living situation, I'm sure there's
(01:53):
there will be people that will comeover and see what the house is like,
that sort of stuff, right,And once all of that gets passed
by the state, then it proceedsto the matching phase, so the parents
can look through the potential birth momsand children that are being born, and
then the birth mom sometimes will wantto also choose who the adoptive parents are.
(02:20):
Sometimes it can go either way,like sometimes it gets an open adoption
or a closed one. What isit that? And I know there's a
ton of answers to this question,but maybe some of the reasons that children
are put up for adoption. Itcan be a whole host of reasons.
The main one I think is justthat the birth mom birth parents could be
(02:42):
young. They don't feel like they'reready to welcome a child into their home.
But then they want to also knowthat their child is going to a
good family, So that's where theywill also want to pick who the adopting
family is. Sometimes they want childrenalready in the family. Sometimes they don't.
(03:04):
Sometimes they will choose that there's nobiological children. Some birth families,
that doesn't matter to them. Theywant they want their child to have siblings.
So there's a lot of reasons.Yeah, no, Christy, what's
the average link for let's just saya domestic adoption. Oh, goodness,
a domestic adoption. I have workedwith two families and they were able to
(03:25):
actually be at the hospital when thechild was born, like in the waiting
room. And then I have afamily that I've worked with and they were
waiting three plus years. Wow.So but that one was international. But
you just never know, Like theprivate adoptions sometimes go the quickest because you
(03:46):
have a nine month timeframe, butyou just you never know. I don't
remember the exact country, but Ihad a friend a couple friend that had
decided to go international, had gonethrough all of it, and then last
minute something happened on that side.I don't know if it was something to
(04:08):
do with the family from the Asiancountry or if it was the country itself,
But there's so many it seems likeroadblocks that can come up in the
process. Yes, there are,and there's always the birth mom could change
your mind. That's always a riskas well. But the international adoption,
(04:29):
they can string it out a littlebit because you have to go there.
There's one family that I worked withand they were adopting twins from twin daughters
from Liberia, and once they gotthere they got to meet them, but
then it was like between the embassiesand the visas. They were there for
(04:50):
seventy days in Liberia waiting. Andthe other thing is that once you're there
and you've met your kids and you'veseen them face to face and you're starting
to bond with them, you can'tleave the country until the visas with them.
But you don't want to leave andcome home and leave them there.
(05:15):
So that's the other thing with theinternational that families can run into is that
they have to get home and workthey have kids at home potentially waiting for
them, but they don't want toleave their adoptive children there. Now,
I know you guys provide financial support, but adoptions, let's just say,
(05:38):
internationally, can be so crazy becauselaws are different, how countries operate are
different. Do you guys provide resourcesto help make that process easier for families
as well? We don't. Thatusually falls under the adoption agency. We
are just there to try to helpalleviate the burden of the funds. I
(05:59):
have to talk to a lot ofpeople and the reason that they've backed away
from adoption is the financial cost.And that makes me sad to think that
there are families that could welcome childrenand children that need families and the main
hindrance is money. We're talking toChristy Benson, she's with Plead for Privilege.
That's the number four if you're lookingit up, and we're talking about
(06:23):
adoption, and I'm learning things.I had no clue about how long this
took or how expensive it was.And one of your goals is to be
able to alleviate that financial stress.How do you do that? How do
you raise these funds to be ableto help these potential adoptive parents. Well,
one way we do is we aretrying to get monthly supporters. You
(06:44):
can choose to give however much,but that way there's money on hand to
help the families get through the beginningstages, the fingerprints, the home studies,
those beginning steps, because with everystep of adoption there's a fee.
You never have to write a checkfor, like the forty thousand dollars,
but there's fees along the way andyou have to pay for it. So
(07:08):
with our monthly donors, we wantto have money on hand to be able
to do that. Then at thevery end, there is a placement fee,
and that could be fifteen to twentyfive thousand dollars. That it's like
when the baby is placed in yourarms, you owe the fee. And
so with that we try to dofundraisers. We've done a dinner fundraiser,
(07:29):
We've done a silent auction fundraiser,We've done a puzzle fundraiser which has been
very successful, and that just bringsin a large sum of money all at
one time, so they have itthere for the placement fee. You know,
I'm curious if you and maybe youdon't know this exact number, but
in our local area here, howmany kids are needing that adoptive parent to
(07:51):
step in right now? It wouldsurprise you how many kids. The main
thing that got my attention is thatthe number of children that are waiting to
be adopted versus the churches in ourarea is almost the same. Wow.
(08:13):
Yeah. So my heart is thatif we could get a church to get
behind every one family in their churchfamily to buck them financially, emotionally,
physically, to take care of theirpets, to mow their yard, anything
(08:33):
like that. If we could getone church to get behind one family within
their church that the family feels supportedin every way, that would cause a
huge stint in the amount of kidswho needs to be adopted. That's an
interesting, very specific dream there.I never would have thought to equate that,
But I think sometimes we don't know, we don't know what the need
(08:54):
is, and how do we what'sthe first step. If someone's hearing this
and they're like, yeah, Iwant to do that, I want my
church to get involved, well,you can go to our website. It's
www. Dot plead for and it'sthe number four dot org. We want
to help churches be able to supporttheir members like if they know that there's
(09:15):
a member within their church that wouldlike to adopt, we want to give
resources to do that. The otherthing is just to if you see a
need, like there's needs all theway down, especially if you're going internationally,
there's going to be a parking fee, like once you get back and
you've left your car parked in thein the airport. I mean that could
(09:37):
be substantial if you're stuck somewhere forseventy days, just taking care of pets,
watering flowers, making sure that theirrefrigerator and their cupboards are stocked when
they get home, helping to babysitmaybe other kids so that they can bond
with the child that they're bringing home. There's just there's so many ways to
(09:58):
get involved. And then there's thefinancial way. Sometimes people want to be
like hands on and helping and thensometimes you know, people are like,
well, I just would like togive money, And either way is very
helpful to the families. And ifthere's a family listening today that's in the
process of adoption, are about tostart them and they do need financial assistance,
(10:18):
where I think can they get ahold of you at well, you
can get through the website. Okay, my email address is Christy at Pleadford
dot org. We do have anapplication that people can fill out on there,
and then I'd just like to talkto people. Not only do I
want to help them financially, butI want to sort of walk with them
(10:41):
through the process. There was onefamily who they were adopting domestically, but
it was an interstate so they hadto be away from their home, their
job for a few weeks and theyyou know, in the paperwork they got
they were there for a little bitlonger than they were expecting to be there.
(11:03):
They were in a hotel, theywere tired of eat and take out,
you know. So we were ableto come alongside and we got groceries
delivered to them from yeah, oneof those stempanies. Yeah, And so
we were able to get groceries deliveredto them so that they were able to
eat something fresh in their hotel room. So it's like, not only do
I want to help financially, butwe also like to just walk alongside.
(11:26):
What was it that drew you tothis as a passion because you have four
daughters, yes, and that seemslike a house full right there, and
you wanted everyone to experience parenthood.What is it that made you, I
don't know, get excited about it? Well, okay, so my husband
and I we tried to adopt oncewe were blessed with twins. They're nine
(11:50):
now, so we tried to adoptone time before they were born and it
did not work out. And thenwe tried to adopt internationally after they were
born, and that also the doorwas closed on that. So you know,
you get used to life and you'retrying to you know, raise kids
(12:11):
and everything, and then it waslike just God spoke to me and was
like, you know, just becauseyou can't adopt doesn't mean you can't do
something. So I just started toinvestigate, and I started to talk to
people who I knew had adopted orhad not, who had thought about it
(12:31):
and had not. And the reoccurringthing was the finances. So I was
just I knew a couple in mychurch who was adopting, so I talked
to her and I was like,hey, can I try a fundraiser,
like will will you be my guineapig? And she was like sure.
So it we did it and itwas successful, and so then we just
(12:52):
sort of rolled with it and developeda nonprofit in twenty twenty one. That's
awesome. I think you've put itme be in a way that helps all
of us feel like we can dosomething. Because maybe it's you can meet
needs by an active service and you'venamed out some very specific things there.
Maybe you have the ability to financesomebody else when you yourself couldn't be that
(13:15):
adoptive family. So either way youcan help out. And let's make sure
we mentioned the website again one moretime. It's plead for It is the
number p L E A D fourdot org and this is plead for Privilege.
Christy Benson, thanks so much foryour time and thanks for being here
for Carolina Cares. Yes, thankyou,
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