Wendy's Wonderful Kids combines the fundraising strengths of Wendy's restaurants and its customers, aggressive grants management of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption and the talent of experienced adoption recruiters throughout the nation and Canada to move children from foster care into permanent, loving adoptive homes.
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How It Works
Wendy's restaurants, their customers and other partners raise funds for the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption through customer donations dropped in the now-familiar canisters at Wendy’s restaurants and support from other partners. With the proceeds, the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption awards grants to local adoption organizations to hire recruiters to execute aggressive child-focused recruitment programs targeted exclusively on placing foster care children with adoptive families. The foster children typically served by Wendy's Wonderful Kids recruiters are some of the longest waiting children in foster care. Many have special needs. Recruiters work at building a relationship with the child and attempt to reconnect them to positive people from their past. While Wendy's Wonderful Kids recruiters function similarly to other adoption workers as their goal is to connect children with families, they are adjunct recruiters working with public and private adoption workers solely to connect children with adoptive resources.
History
In 2004, the Wendy's Wonderful Kids program was piloted in seven cities. Today, more than 100 Wendy’s Wonderful Kids recruiters are working in every state in the U.S. and Canada to move children from foster care into adoptive families.
Objectives
The objectives of the Wendy’s Wonderful Kids partnership are to:
- Raise awareness of foster care adoption among the general population especially Wendy’s customers.
- Keep the spirit of Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy's, in the hearts and minds of consumers by promoting a cause about which he was passionate.
- Continually raise money to fund grants for salaries of foster care adoption recruiters.
- Place children with forever families through child-focused recruitment strategies the program pioneered.
Program Success
In July 2010, 5,968 children had been served by the program, with 3,704 children matched with a prospective adoptive family, 686 children in pre-adoptive homes, and 1,754 children adopted. In July 2008, Wendy’s Wonderful Kids reached the milestone of 500 children adopted from foster care as a result of the program. In 2007, Wendy’s Wonderful Kids earned a 2007 Adoption Excellence Award from the United States Department of Health and Human Services. In 2006, the Wendy’s Wonderful Kids program expands to every state, the District of Columbia and two Canadian provinces.