Ten years ago, we had two people who worked on 14 adoptions from China.
Ten years later, we have 70 staff members working in six countries with 500 adoptions completing in 2002.
As with any growing organization, CHI sees the need for changes and improvements. We are excited about two things this year: our new board and the accreditation of COA (Council on Accreditation). Here, I want to introduce to our families to our new board.
Yes, they are almost all CHI adoptive parents. Where else we can find a group of people more passionate for our work? There are so many talented people in our CHI circle! The new board represents a variety of knowledge and skills in spiritual leadership, organization dynamics, finance, medical and social work fields. The following is a list of the new board members for 2002-2005. In the following issues of this newsletter, we will introduce our board members one by one. Together, we look forward to the miracles God will bring and His blessings on His children and this agency .
Children's Hope International
Board Members 2002-2005
Paul Fritz Proud father of Maggie, Ashley and Becky, Founder and President, The Executive Advisory Group, a management consulting firm in Chicago.
Dwyatt Gantt Founder and executive Director of CHI.
Jeff Hor Father of Chelsey, Senior Court Clerk for NYC Supreme Court.
Margaret Ormonde Mother of David, Rebecca and Alice, Physician at St. Louis Connectcare.
Barry Petrowsky Father of Lily. Former
vice president of Midwest region of Westfield Corporation in St. Louis.
Financial consultant at A G Edwards.
Rick Shelton Founder and senior pastor of Life Christian Church, a three thousand-member church in St. Louis with outreach programs in many countries.
Michael Wild Father of Justin, Julia, and Nathan. V.P. Marketing at Parsons Brinckerhoff.
Bill Winter Financial Officer at SIU Edwardsville.
Melody Zhang social worker, co-founder and associate director of CHI, mother of Ting Ting
COA
Accredited
We are proud to announce CHI is finally accredited by Council on Accreditation. CHI holds licenses in several states, and we go through the state licensing process periodically. However, COA accreditation is on a much higher level, and we are proud to say we came out better after this two-year-long process. A new board was formed, and we now have new policies and procedures for many areas of our work that help us to be a more professional and productive agency. For all the families, you may take pride that your agency is one of the first group of international adoption agencies to go through this very intensive accreditation for social service agencies, and we passed it! Thanks to Dianna Briner, our finance and personnel manager who was our leading force in the COA committee and thanks to everyone on the committee and every staff member and volunteer who contributed in this joint effort!