LIMA — Facing more than $16,000 in adoption fees, Lima resident Alaina Morris turned to crowdfunding website GoFundMe to help lessen the cost of bringing another child into her family. And she’s not alone.
According to statistics from GoFundMe, which allows people to contribute online for things such as adoption, there have been 3,283 fundraisers mentioning the word “adoption” in the last four years, with a donation volume of more than $6 million.
In addition, 1,600 campaigns mentioning fertility treatment have netted more than $2 million since 2012.
Before creating a GoFundMe page, Morris planned to organize a fundraiser to help pay for her adoption. However, when the adoption agency called Morris and told her she had to pick up her child earlier than planned, she was scrambling to find enough money to pay for the upfront cost.
“We went from thinking we had time to plan a fundraiser to having to come up with funds very, very quickly,” Morris said. “It [GoFundMe] seemed like the fastest way possible to put some money together.”
Since creating the GoFundMe page in January, the Morris family has raised more than $3,700 from friends, relatives and complete strangers.
“That’s what hits you the most, these people you don’t know who are supporting you either because they’ve been there themselves or for no reason whatsoever,” Morris said. “It was very humbling to us.”
With fees in the tens of thousands of dollars, many families feel they cannot afford adoption. Though Morris said she would have went through with the adoption whether she raised any money or not, she said some families aren’t so lucky.
“I know people personally who would have made great parents who have been deterred because it’s so expensive,” she said.
Morris said adoptions are expensive for a few reasons. In most instances, the adopting family pays for their own legal fees, along with the legal fees of the mother from whom they are adopting. Birth mothers are also compensated as a way of “getting them back on their feet,” Morris said. In addition, families also pay for a social worker to meet with them monthly. This does not include travel fees for families looking to adopt children from overseas.
Though Morris said GoFundMe can be an easy and effective way to raise money for adoption, she recommends using it as a “jumping off point” instead of trying to fund an entire adoption.
“You still have to be responsible, you still have to plan and you still have to save,” she said. “My husband and I have made lots of cutbacks. We don’t have new cars, we don’t have a brand new house. We try to be practical with things because building our family was more important to us.”
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