Huge Garage Sale

As we mentioned in the last post, as part of our fund-raising efforts we're going to be having a monstrous sale on April 11 & 12, 8am - 3pm. Really, we know it's going to be huge, because we've already got approximately three and a half tons of stuff you didn't want your precious belongings that you have donated to the cause.

If you are in Bloomington, there are a couple of things you can do to help us with this.

1. Donate anything you think we can sell - really, anything. Furniture, appliances, clothes, baked goods, canned goods, books, music, lightbulbs - whatever. Then bring it all to the church's Senior High Room on Wednesday the 9th (9 a.m. - 8 p.m.) or to the church's gymnasium on Thursday (9 a.m. - 9 p.m.). If you want to price your own items, go for it. Otherwise, we'll slap a price on it on Thursday night, which brings me to the next way to help.
   
   
2. Volunteer. We need help advertising. We've split up Bloomington and need people to volunteer to post 3-5 signs in their area. We're also going to print posters to post in restaurants, shops, and the library downtown. Then we'll need help pricing everything on Thursday. Any amount of time you can come between the hours of 10 a.m. - 10 p.m. would be great. Next we'll need about 5 volunteers to help run the sale (take money, make sure people don't steal, help load stuff). Shifts are 7:30 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. - 3 p.m. Friday and Saturday. When it's all said and done on Saturday at 3, we'll need a truck and some manly men to load up the leftovers (hopefully not much) and take to Backstreet Mission. That about covers it.
   
   
3. Bring everyone you know to the sale! This isn't exactly a high-traffic location, and 314 tables of items for sale without anyone buying would be rather... sad. There will definitely be great deals, and we'll be raffling off a beautiful quilt made by Heidi's mom. If anyone has a clue about how raffles work - ummm, we don't. Hint, hint. We're thinking about selling each raffle ticket for $5?
   

Fundraising (ie. Money, Money, Money)

As you can see from the thermometer on the right, we currently have a goal of raising $20,000 for the adoption process. This is a minimum estimate of the cost according to our agency, AWAA. You can find a detailed breakdown of this estimate here. There are a number of things that could cause our goal to rise in the coming months, including being forced to spend more than the estimated minimum amounts as we continue through the process--something that is a definite possibility. However, the single biggest change will be if we receive referrals for two children instead of one. We have requested two referrals, but we probably will not know if this is possible until we receive them. At that time, our goal could increase significantly. So the question becomes, how are we planning on raising this money?

We are going to start a pyramid scheme! Ok, maybe not. We're actually pursuing a number of different ideas at once. Some of them may not pan out, but right now, this is the plan.

1. Garage Sale

This is going to be a huge sale, primarily made up of items donated by you: our friends and family. It will take place at Church of the Good Shepherd. For details, please see the next post.

2. Grants and Scholarships

The paperwork's a drag, but you can't turn down free money, right? We'll be applying for a number of different scholarships over the next few months. (You've heard that there are millions of unclaimed dollars in scholarships and grants each year, right? Here's to hoping that a few of them slide our way.)

3. Donations

Of course, we will also be accepting donations from family, friends, strangers, and enemies. The catch here is that if we receive any matching grants, some of the donations will have to be appropriately tracked by that organization. So if you offer us money, and we tell you to make the check out to something not even remotely like "Joseph & Heidi Bayly," you'll know why.

4. Write a Book

OK, so this is where we get a little crazy. Actually, the book has already been written by my sister, Hannah. The idea right now is to make some modifications, and then print it, market it and sell it. We aren't sure where this will go, but rest assured, you'll be able to find out more about it right here on our blog.

5. Let You do our Fundraising!

Yes, we are more than open to others putting on fundraisers of their own devising. In fact, it would be downright encouraging if you would be creative and help us out with this in your own unique way. We've heard tell of one plan that includes a real-life medieval feast. The reality is that we have way more fundraising ideas than Heidi and I can pull off on our own. Many of them are ideas that you all came up with and told us about. If you can just go ahead and do it too, that would rock! Then you can brag about how much money you raised for our adoption. Yeah, like I said, a pyramid scheme. (But we're serious.)

Strangest Donation Award!

Well, we haven't really done much fundraising yet, but we're already awarding our strangest donation award to the person who gave us old gold teeth and an old wedding ring! Hey whatever it takes, right? If anyone wants to try to top that donation for weirdest, wackiest, go for it. We'll at least award a runner-up. In the meantime, does anyone know where I can get cash for gold?

Spinning wheels

The last couple of weeks we haven't made much visible progress in adoption. As soon as we think we're going to do something to move forward, we find out we have to redo a document or a notarized signature, or nail down details of fundraising.

We're still mainly waiting for life insurance to get finalized (it's in the hands of the underwriters) and our I171-H to come (there are 50 applications in front of ours). Why does the government seem to move so slowly? People in Indiana frequently get their I171-H back in 10-14 days after being fingerprinted. We're being told about 6 weeks, which means 3-4 to go. I've called and emailed a few times each week, just to help with incentive, but I don't have much confidence that it will do anything. But, what else is there to do but be so annoying that the person just does the work as quickly as possible?

Our agency also increased the wait times for referrals by a couple of months, which is discouraging, but out of our control, as is everything. They now say 5-9 months after turning in your dossier. So, hopefully we can get our paperwork in during April then get a referral by the end of the year and travel shortly after that.

This baby will be overly welcome when it finally gets here! I just have to keep reminding myself this is actually for a baby, not just a hypothetical 'adoption.'