Origins-USA Needs Your help

The annual Origins-USA board meeting was held on Tuesday, August 31, 2010, and the incoming Board members were announced. I want to acknowledge each of the previous Board members and thank them for their dedication, their deeds and their foresight.

As the newly elected president I'm not overstating that, despite the strong efforts of the previous Board members, I'm very concerned that without your help Origins-USA will no longer be able to function and our mission to protect the natural right of mothers to nuture their children will go stagnant. The Board will meet the week of November 14, 2010, to consider your response.

There are sound, strong reasons to keep Origins-USA actively involved in protecting mothers' rights.
In some states, mothers sign away all parental rights before the child is born, while in other states mothers sign irrevocable surrenders of parental rights upon leaving the delivery room.
In most states, if a mother receives any counseling, the adoption industry usually provides it and the industry is paid only if the mother surrenders her child.
In many states, the same attorney represents the prospective adopters and the mother. In other states, the mother's attorney, if she has one, is paid for by the prospective adopters.
The adoption industry is a largely unregulated billion dollar a year business.
Origins-USA works for legislative changes on the behalf of mothers.

In order to continue operations Origins-USA needs your member dues, your donations and your volunteer time.

Origins-USA is a national tax-exempt, non-profit organization and, although we do have dues paying members, the majority of our operating expenses are funded by a few generous donations.

Origins-USA is a lean organization with minimal expenses such as the website, a USPS mailbox, a telephone line, annual corporation fee, fee for professional accounting and tax services, and a monthly fee to provide members the ability to submit their dues and donations via a secure website.

All of the day-to-day operations of the website (e.g., Mother's Stories; Books, Movies and Music; membership; etc.), community outreach and the newsletter are possible, thanks to volunteers.

Origins-USA needs additional donations and volunteers.

We need a volunteer who is experienced with financial records to be Treasurer, a position that entails approximately 10 hours per month. We need a volunteer who is experienced with social networking, blogs, magazine articles and op-ed pieces to handle media. This position needs someone who can devote time to monitoring news related to all aspects of adoption and be willing to respond carrying forward Origins-USA's message. We need a volunteer to work on policy and legislative issues. This entails oversight of policy development based on research and supporting evidence to submit to the Board for approval, working with the Board to develop a legislative agenda and strategies, and develop relationships between Origins-USA and legislators.

Please take a few moments to consider the state of Origins-USA. We need your response by Saturday, November 13, 2010.

Thank you for your support of Origins-USA.

Jeanine Biocic
President
jmbiocic@origins-usa.org