Come out and enjoy an evening of a dinner buffet, cocktails and a live auction to win amazing prices. Prices are $150 per person if purchased in advance and $175 at the door.
Friends,
We waited a long time for this adoption, and I think 11-year-old Jacob’s caseworker, Liz, said it best:
“HE’S ADOPTED! I’ve still got tears in my eyes. What a great day!”
Congratulations to the Cummings-Knutson family! We are absolutely overjoyed and so grateful to celebrate this long-awaited forever family moment with you.
We are excited to announce that the Spring Lake Five Mile Run is now a supporter of Downey Side Adoption. Yesterday, I met with board member Patty Burrus, who presented us with a generous check for $5,000. We are thrilled to receive this support, which will help families transition into instant parents through the adoption process. Additionally, it will assist us in preparing backpacks, with the help of some Eagle Scouts, to fill with necessities for children from Foster Care who arrive with few to no provisions, sometimes even lacking essential items like a toothbrush. We want to express our heartfelt gratitude to the Spring Lake Five Mile Run for their generous support. Thank you very much, Patty, and thank you to the Spring Lake Five Mile Run!
BRICK – Like many parents, Jim Perone helped his daughter Selena prepare for her driving test.
Like many kids, Selena chafed a bit at her father’s way of going about it.
“Even with me being a new driver, he can be a back-seat driver,” the 17-year-old said. “But other than that, I’ll give him credit: No one was injured in the process of me learning.”
Selena got her license – and even aced the parallel parking portion of the test. It’s a big moment for any family, but it carried an extra layer of significance for Jim and his wife Melissa. For a time, the Brick residents wondered if they ever would be parents. After dealing with fertility struggles and then the challenges of trying to adopt a baby in the U.S., they decided to take the road less traveled and adopt an older child.
Thank you to all of our volunteer committee, our sponsors and all of our supporters and attendees. Your participation in our event made it a success!
Sponsors
Friends of The Gala
Dawn Rusinko, our NY/NJ Director speaks at the New Jersey Adoption Summit about Downey Side’s Mission and the children in foster care that we place into adoptive homes.
LAVALLETTE — For more than 50 years, Downey Side Adoption has been bringing together families and older kids in the country’s foster care system.
In June, the nonprofit, which has a New Jersey location in Lavallette, will be holding its Red Gala & Casino Night fundraiser to collect money which goes directly to the agency’s mission of matching older foster children with permanent, loving homes.
Dawn Rusinko, New Jersey-New York director for Downey Side, told The Ocean Star the origin of the adoption agency’s mission.
We are thrilled that our NY/NJ Director, Dawn Rusinko was featured in February’s 2025 edition of The Provider’s Council Newspaper. Check out the full article on page 3 by clicking here.
A winter storm added three extra hours of hazardous driving to the usual five from New York City but didn’t chill the enthusiasm at this year’s Race For Kids in Stowe, Vermont in January. It was the 24th time the Financial Communications Society hosted the event, which has raised over $3 million for three charities: Hope for Heroes, Make a Wish and Downey Side.
Despite the weather, Downey Side’s leadership showed up in full force— Sister Liz Engel, our Executive Director, Kimberly Frink, Director of Operations, and Dawn Rusinko, Director of Family Services— accompanied by the Scull Family. Lesli, Brett and their two daughters, Jada and Shannun (adopted at 14 and 17 respectively).
At the big dinner held in the octagonal Great Room of the Spruce Base Camp Lodge beneath its vaulted ceiling of wooden beams, Shannun and Jada told a large crowd about how their lives changed for the better once they became part of a permanent family. Shannon recounted that she is now studying criminal law at Stockton College with the desire to help abused children, something she can personally relate to. She noted that she is the first member of her biological family to attend college as well as breaking the cycle of early pregnancy. Her sister, Jada, who was Shannon’s best friend in foster care, is completing high school with an eye on a career in cosmetology.
The success of the two young women as they begin their adult journeys is a marked contrast to the many unfortunate youngsters who never leave foster care until they age out. As I pointed out to the audience, the outcomes for those teenagers who stay in the system are often not good. Rates of homelessness, early pregnancy, and incarceration are considerably higher than the general population. Attending college is rare.
Adopting school-aged kids
For Lesli and Brett, their adoption journey began when they were in their 50’s so bringing mature children into their family made a lot more sense than toddlers and infants. Downey Side with 50 years of experience getting school-aged kids out of foster care was the perfect fit for them, helping them navigate the complicated process twice in rapid succession.
For the audience, witnessing the Sculls tell their stories had a profound impact. Over the three-day event, I was approached by several attendees from major media organizations and offered free advertising and publicity for the agency. (I can’t let the cat out of the bag yet, as we’re currently creating the ads and will announce the campaigns when they start to run.)
It’s impossible to overstate how helpful this will be for Downey Side. One of the unique things about the agency is how laser-focused on its mission it has been for over 50 years. So much so that compared to most other charities it spends very little time and money on publicity.
Of course, you can help simply by spreading the word yourself and sending your friends, family and associates to Downey Side’s website: www.downeyside.org. And you don’t need to drive through a snowstorm to do that!
Broadening teenagers’ horizons through extended family
It’s National Adoption Month and this year the focus is on teens. Teenagers make up almost one quarter of the children in the foster care system.
Many teens in foster care develop a sense of hopelessness. They see themselves aging out of the system without good prospects—and the stats aren’t in their favor, 29% experience homelessness, 20% are likely to be incarcerated and 23% will become parents before turning 21 years-old. College enrollment is only 50% of the rate of the general population.
What’s missing is not only the love and stability of being in a family but the connections stemming from kinship that bring involvement in wider society. Sadly, for children over the age of 16 in foster care, less than half will leave by going into a family. This situation is actually worse than it was five years ago.
Downey Side started with a single teenage adoption. Father Paul Engel, placed sixteen-year-old Brian Champoux with one of his parishioners, Margaret Downey, in 1967 in Springfield, Massachusettes. The agency has steadfastly centered its attention on placing school-aged children into permanent loving homes ever since.
This year, Downey Side has already finalized 6 adoptions—2 boys and 4 girls—aged between 9 and 17 years old and we hope to add another 13-year-old boy and 9-year-old girl soon. This is typical for us. The average age of our adoptees is 11 ½ years old, twice the national average.
At the Downey Side barbecue for our families in Point Pleasant NJ at the tail end of summer, it was especially moving to hear the stories of grandparents in attendance. It brought home how families are a gateway to supportive relationships.
The grandparents all shared a keen interest in their grandchildren’s development, helping in all kinds of ways from simply giving parents a break or showing up for local team sports to using their social network to solicit opportunities such as getting part-time employment. Greater socialization is such a natural part of being in a family it’s easy to take for granted. And, it’s particularly important for teens, without it they are poorly equipped for adulthood.
You can hear some Downey Side grandparents share their experiences along with other family members in this video.
How can you help Downey Side during National Adoption Month?
When families adopt school-aged children, Downey Side charges them a fee, one that is much lower than most other adoption agencies. We can do this for two reasons, firstly, we keep all our overheads to the barest minimum, and secondly, through the generous financial support of people like you.
To donate to Downey Side click here.
You can also help by spreading the word and sharing this blog post or encouraging your friends to follow us on social media.
-Ian Keldoulis,
Writer & Downey Side Board Member