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News & Events
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Current News & EventsSAVE THE DATE - COME HELP US CELEBRATE!!!
Dillon Southwest will be celebrating our 25th anniversary in style on September 21, 2008. We have some very special surprises planned for this late afternoon – early evening celebration. Please mark you calendars now so that you don't miss out in joining the Dillon Southwest family (which now includes over 850 Korean-born children) as we celebrate our treasures – the children! HONORED GUESTS VISIT DILLON SOUTHWESTDr. Kim, Jin Sook, the new President of Eastern Social Welfare Society and Mrs. Kim, Tae Ok, Director of the Post-Adoption and Sponsorship Department at ESWS visited Dillon Southwest in March. Dr. Kim and Mrs. Kim were on a whirlwind trip, visiting five counterpart agencies in the United States in ten days. We were thrilled to have them spend two days with us!
We were pleased to learn of Dr. Kim's vision to renovate older homes in Korea and turn them into warm and welcoming homes for birth mothers in need of a place to stay during their pregnancy. Dillon Southwest is committed to work to support this worthy endeavor. If you would like to join us in helping ESWS with this very special project, please send your tax-deductible donation to Dillon Southwest. While they were visiting Arizona, the pair met with the Dillon Southwest staff, had lunch with staff and the Board of Directors, and enjoyed a relaxing few hours visiting with parents and playing with the children. CHILDREN'S DAY 2008 WAS SPECTACULAR!With the help of the Korean community, especially Mr. Kim, Woo Seok of the Korean Today newspaper, this year's Children's Day was just that – a day for children and their families to enjoy! Mr. Kim and his volunteers supplied wonderful food, activities, cultural events and fun for all! Many thanks to Mr. Kim for all of his work and interest in making this event a success!
The Hanbok Parade begins………………
Talented entertainers perform for the crowd.
Fun, fun, fun – and a free tee shirt, too! A huge thank you to our two super DSW moms, Mimi and Maria, who worked hard to make this wonderful event happen! WHAT FUN WE HAD AT CHUSOK!This year, we again held our annual Korean-American Thanksgiving Celebration (Chusok) at Fiddlesticks. Dillon Southwest families and friends enjoyed a fun filled day. Children and adults treated themselves to four hours of unlimited attractions, Korean food and buying and bidding on items that were donated to Dillon Southwest in order to raise money for Eastern Social Welfare Society. As in years past, our friends from the Arizona Agape Mission Church provided Korean food for all to savor and enjoy. There were rave reviews about the food and all who attended seemed to agree that our friends provided us with the best Korean food ever!
A special treat for all who attended was a beautiful demonstration of the art of the Korean bow. Several of "our" children who are now young adults took part in the ceremony. A special thank you to Youngmi of the Myung Won Cultural Foundation for this spectacular event!
The Myung Won Cultural Foundation also treated all of us to the traditional tea ceremony.
In addition to our demonstration, families were thrilled to meet Ms. Park and Mrs. Kim from Eastern Social Welfare Society who traveled all the way from Korea to be at our event. Ms. Park, a social worker at ESWS, was able to meet some of the babies who were on her caseload when she worked in the Childcare Department. She was also able to meet some of the young adults who have attended ESWS's Korean Language Class and also those who are in the process of or who have searched for their birth family. Mrs. Kim, a foster mother, was thrilled to be reunited with two of the children that she cared for as babies.
We thank each and every one of you who helped, donated items and attended the event. Together, we were able to raise funds for Eastern Social Welfare Society. These funds will go directly to helping them help the children in their care. Thanks again for your help and support! OUR NEW LOOK!Dillon Southwest is sporting a new look in one of our offices. Thanks to the hard work of one of "our" kids, Ryan, we now are reflecting a more culturally diverse look in the room we use for our group education. For years, we have been doing the local services for families who are adopting from countries other than Korea through out-of-state agencies. Thanks to Ryan’s work, families who come to us for those services, will now feel more at home. Ryan approached our agency to see how he might help Dillon Southwest on his quest to achieve the highest rank in boy scouting, the rank of Eagle scout. After much discussion, Ryan’s concept for redecorating the room began to come to life. He measured, planned and measured again. Then he went home to begin building shadow boxes that encase both beautiful pictures and special information about eight different countries. The culminating experience to over 280 hours of work by Ryan and his team of 20 part-time volunteers was an afternoon at Dillon Southwest where he and his "crew" worked to redecorate the room. The project that Ryan envisioned is now there for all to enjoy! We hope that you will scroll down to see the pictures of this wonderful project. All of us at Dillon Southwest say THANK YOU to Ryan and his crew for a job well done! We are thrilled that he selected Dillon Southwest to be the recipient of his hard work. More importantly, we are proud beyond words of Ryan and his accomplishment!
DILLON SOUTHWEST GOLF CLASSIC, 2007
On June 9, 2007, Dillon Southwest held our Golf Classic 2007 at Legend Trail Golf Course in Scottsdale. As in previous years, participants enjoyed a shotgun start, 18 holes of golf, a silent auction and a luncheon. Each participant was given the opportunity to demonstrate their skills by trying to win a new Infiniti in the Hole in One contest. Dillon Southwest also welcomed two special guests. An adult adoptee, placed by our agency, who is now a professional golfer on a mini tour, was able to attend our event and help us raise money for the Korean adoption program by setting up a "Beat the Pro" contest for willing golfers. Our other guest was a five year old little girl, placed by our agency, who showed the golfers how she is going to give Michelle Wei a run for her money.
Thank you to our sponsors, our special Pros, both big and small, volunteers, golfers, and Legend Trail Golf Course and their staff for helping us make a difference in the lives of children and families!
ACCREDITATION, ACCREDITATION, ACCREDITATION!This year, our Council On Accreditation (COA) accreditation is due for renewal. In addition to working hard to meet the standards for our scheduled renewal of the COA accreditation, we are also working diligently to meet the standards for Hague accreditation so that Dillon Southwest will also be a Hague accredited agency. Watch for more information on this important subject. RAISING MONEY FOR DILLON SOUTHWEST IS A CLICK AWAYOne of our adult adoptees has found a great and easy way to raise money for Dillon Southwest! And, here is how: There is a search engine called GoodSearch that donates money to the charity of your choice every time you use it to search. If you install the toolbar on your computer and select Dillon Southwest as your charity. We will then receive approximately one cent for every search that you do. It is estimated that we will make over $700 for every 100 people that use GoodSearch. Please check it out at www.GoodSearch.com Thank you to our families who are donating to Dillon Southwest through United Way. We are an approved United Way agency, so you can designate Dillon Southwest to be the recipient of your donation by including our ID number - 0115. As always, we thank you for helping us help the children! GIFTS OF LOVE FOR THE CHILDRENMany families have purchased baby clothing or donated money for baby clothes for the infants at Eastern. We continue to send this clothing to Eastern with staff or families who travel. Below is a picture of two of the foster mothers and their children. The children are "modeling" some of the donated clothing. We know that the staff at Eastern Social Welfare Society, as well as the babies, appreciate the new garments and your generosity!
A big thank you to each and every one of you!
Collecting new clothing for infants is an on-going project. The major need is for sizes 0-3 months. However, sizes 3-9 months would be greatly appreciated, too. If you would like to contribute clothing, please bring your items to the office, and we will make sure that the babies in Korea receive them. If you prefer, you may send a check made out to Dillon Southwest and marked for ESWS, to our office, and we will gladly give the donation to ESWS. ORIENTATION MEETINGSOur agency holds orientation meetings approximately every six weeks. If you are interested in attending, please call the office at 480-945-2221. ADOPTIVE FAMILIES ARE OUR CHILDREN'S BEST RESOURCE!Your happy family is the best advertisement for finding new families to adopt. We are always looking for good families! Please help us to spread the word! If you belong to a civic group that would like to have a staff person from Dillon Southwest speak about our program, we would be most happy to do so. If you, or someone that you know would be interested in pursuing additional information about adoption, please call our office. Thank you so much for helping the children! ARE YOU NEW TO ARIZONA?Do you have a child who was placed through Eastern Social Welfare Society by an agency other than Dillon Southwest? If so, we would be happy to add you to our database so that we can notify you if your child's foster mother or social worker plans to visit our agency. If you are interested in being notified of these special visits or special events, please call our office. THANK YOU!A big THANK YOU from all of us at Dillon Southwest to NetSys Interactive Inc. for hosting our website. |
