Our History

Everyday Blessings was founded in August of 1997 as a non-denominational, cooperative adoption agency and was licensed by the State of Florida as a Child Placing Agency in July 1998. Everyday Blessings is the second Florida project of the Sisters of Holy Cross (St. Francis Foundation, Inc. - a 501(c)(3) Florida non-profit corporation).

Our Purpose

The purpose of Everyday Blessings is to ensure stability and permanency not only in the lives of children whose biological parent(s) recognize their inability to care for them, but also for children who have been permanently removed from their families due to neglect and abuse - children who otherwise would likely spend their childhood in the unstable, impermanent and frequently abusive foster care system.

Everyday Blessings offers an alternative to abuse, neglect and lengthy stays in the foster care system. One woman who spent her childhood in the foster care system expressed that when she was a little girl being “thrown back and forth from one foster home to another,” she “always dreamed that someone could adopt me and I could have a real family. But my parents kept getting custody of me, and then sending me away again. It was a very strange childhood to say the least!”

Everyday Blessings serves children without regard to race, gender or religious affiliation.

Who we Serve

1.  Birth parent(s) who recognize their inability and/or lack of desire to parent at the present time, but who are reluctant to release their child(ren) to an unknown family.

Many of these birth parents are very young women, often teenagers, who are not ready or able to parent. Many of their children eventually suffer from abandonment, abuse or neglect, and end up in foster care where they can languish for years. Many will be shifted from one foster home to another, developing problems that adversely affect not only their own lives, but which also have a negative impact on the larger community.

2.  Adoptive parent(s) who are eager and willing to adopt children, but who may not have the financial resources to meet the exorbitant costs often associated with adoption.

Many qualified, loving families are eagerly hoping to provide safe, stable and permanent homes for children, but have not been able to pursue the adoption process because of the often exorbitant fees that most adoption agencies charge which must be paid “up front” before the process can even begin. To use a very real example, Everyday Blessings is currently working with one couple who waited eight years to adopt their first child, simply because it took them that long to save the money for the enormous fees that another agency required. How sad it is that placement of a child into a safe, loving permanent home was delayed for that period of time simply because of up-front adoption costs! Everyday Blessings provides training and subsidies to adoptive families who have the love and stability to offer children. This will help to make adoption affordable to every socio-economic class of loving families.

3.  Children who need the safety, stability and permanence of a loving home and who are unable to enjoy these basic needs in their families of origin.

Everyday Blessings’ approach should help to reduce the period of time that some children have to spend in foster care while parents continue to battle in court for their rights simply because they have had no other alternative. Study after study has shown that the less time children have to spend in foster or institutional care, the better. Children languishing in foster care for long periods of time are known to develop a range of physical, emotional, social and spiritual problems that often perpetuate themselves over future generations of children.

Our Services

Everyday Blessings works with birth parents and adoptive parents together to provide for the fundamental needs of these most fundamentally disadvantaged children. Everyday Blessings’ services include recruiting, training, follow-up and support of adoptive parents, birth parents and children.

An Overview

Our mission is to provide affordable cooperative adoption services to all parties in the adoption process - with the primary focus of finding safe, stable and permanent homes for children with "special needs" i.e. physical and emotional handicaps, multiple siblings adoptions and older children.

Unlike traditional adoption agencies, Everyday Blessings takes a unique approach to placing children. We involve the birth parents in the process right from the start. We also offer a choice of payment plans, thus making the adoption process more affordable to all.

The role of Everyday Blessings is to facilitate the placement of children into safe, stable and permanent homes. In addition to domestic adoptions, Everyday Blessings will also work with families interested in the International Adoption of children.

For those families wanting to provide temporary care for children, Everyday Blessings also recruits, trains and supervises Foster Families for the Department of Children and Families.

With Everyday Blessings:

The birth parent has the opportunity to be part of the selection process, to meet the family who will care for the child and to feel secure that the child will have a good home.

The adoptive parent has the opportunity to meet the birth parent, to recognize the courage it has taken to come to this decision and to ask questions about the family history, i.e. the child's preferences, medical history, etc.

The child has the opportunity to say "goodbye" to the birth parent and receives permission from the birth parent to say "hello" to the adoptive parent(s).

Everyday Blessings Adoption Agency
P.O. Box 1264, Thonotosassa, Florida 33592
Phone 813-982-9226 - Fax 813-986-0298 - Email everydayblessings@everybless.org

This initial website was produced with the generous assistance of the Children's Board of Hillsborough County.

Everyday Blessings is a Florida licensed child placing agency providing services to birth parents, adoptive/foster parents and, especially to children involved in the adoption process. It has complied with the standards set by the State of Florida, Department of Children and Families, for a child placing agency. As such it is licensed to operate as a child placing agency and this license shall continue in force and be renewed on the 25th day of July of each year. Our services are sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of Children and Families. Other sponsors include the Children's Board of Hillsborough County as well as numerous foundations, corporations and individuals. Everyday Blessings is a program of St. Francis Foundation, Inc., a 501 (c) (3) not-for-profit Florida corporation. All donations are tax deductible.