Summer of Hope is a program where volunteer Christian host families open their homes to school-age Filipino and Colombian orphans. By hosting a child through Summer of Hope, a family can give an orphaned child a fun-filled vacation and a chance to experience life in a family; both things they have likely never experienced before. But most importantly, during these 3 short weeks, there is an opportunity to advocate for these children and help them find their forever family through adoption - a chance they may never get again.

 

The Summer of Hope program is impactful because we see children given a future and a hope for a better life. Every day thousands of children reach the age when they are no longer adoptable. Their greatest fear is being forced to leave an institution with no one to belong to and no place to call home. These children have been passed by year after year because people generally want to adopt babies and are often afraid of the unknowns and challenges they will face if they adopt an older child.

 

The Summer of Hope program can take some of the fear and risk out of adopting an older child by giving prospective families an opportunity to see and evaluate first-hand what the challenges and rewards would be. Through the SPCO hosting programs, many of the children find permanent families as a result of their sojourn to the U.S. In fact, the program boasts an 75% success rate. Over seventeen summers, a total of 215 children from Russia, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Ethiopia, the Congo, and the Philippines have participated in our programs. Of those children, 158 have been or are in the process of being adopted.