Each year the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute awards people with the Angel in Adoption award.

This award recognizes people who have made a contribution to the adoption “industry” on some level. These can be either high profile people, or just your average citizen. Nominations can come from anywhere or anyone.

It could be someone who has lobbied for post adoption services, someone who has helped get adoption legislation passed through, or simply someone who has increased adoption awareness.

The nominations are closed for 2007, but you can begin to gather information and start the process for a 2008 nomination.

If you know someone you think deserves a nomination, the process is not a quick one. Here is how you start.

All nominations must be submitted through a member of Congress. In order to submit your nomination, you must know who the representatives for your candidate are. You can find that information here.

Gather as many people as you can to submit letters of recommendation to the representative. These people could be personal friends, business associates, family members, other foster or adoptive families, organizations that the nominee is associated with, church members of the nominee and so on. The more letters the representative receives, the stronger the consideration for the nomination.

The nomination must outline who the person is, along with the address so that they know the person is in the area, why you feel they deserve the nomination, adoption affiliations if applicable or if you know them, family make up and other things that you think will catch the representatives attention. The letter needs to be creative but honest and factual.

If you can, include a picture of the nominee or the nominee and family. Pictures always personalize things when you’re dealing with a mass of paper. It will bring attention to your nominee.

Each year there are national recipients, who tend to be celebrities, as well as recipients for each state. The national recipients for 2007 are:

Patti LaBelle
Alonzo Mourning
Marcus Samuelsson

For a list of recipients from 1999 – 2007, click here.

Steve Hayes - Angel in Adoption recipient

Think of whom the angels in your life are, dust off your writing skills, and send a nomination in. I promise if your nominee is selected as a recipient, you will make their day.

Photo credit