Post #9 - We're finally certified

 

First of all, Happy New Year! Hope your first week into the new year has been treating you well! 

I was starting to get antsy because our home study was submitted to the court November 1st and what was suppose to be a 2-4 week turn around for the court to process and mail out our certification, was now turning into 6, 7, 8 weeks. 

After 6 weeks, on December 14th,  I emailed the agency. They notified me they were as surprised and frustrated as I was that it was taking so long. They mentioned they had reached out to the court to check on the status and were told that it was approved as of December 1st. Now the issue was trying to obtain the physical paper certificate. The agency said they would be working on it but the office administrator was out sick. We figured with the holidays coming up, the chance of getting the paper copy before the new year was slim so we tried to just let it go and enjoy the holidays. 

On Jan 2nd, about 9 weeks after the agency submitted it, we (or the agency) still hadn't received a copy in the mail. SO, Cody and I decided to take it upon ourselves to drive down to the court office and request a copy in person! Thirty minutes later and a confusing trip to the court office waiting in the wrong office and being directed somewhere else,  WE FINALLY GOT IT! 

As soon as we got home, I emailed a copy to the agency, we got an invoice for an amount of $3,000 and once paid, the agency was able to open up our AdpotFund link! 

We are happy to say that we are officially certified and onto the next step of fundraising! 

We spent the first few days of January filling out a lengthly adoption aid grant from the Show Hope organization and should know in about 90 days if we are accepted for that or not. In regards to other financial support, we went to Chipotle yesterday to inquire about fundraising events. As well as talked with a couple friends and the outreach program director at our church to get more ideas on how we can involve our church and community. Word of mouth fundraising seems to be one of the most common and successful ways to get started. 

So we are humbly asking that if you feel led and comfortable could you please share our story with others and let them know of the opportunity to help us. 

I made a sharable link (at end of post) last night to help make this process easier. That way you can just pass on the info via text message or email. I will work on making a little flyer as well with a QR code people can scan. 

The timing works out so beautifully to start fundraising with tax season approaching. For those that live in Arizona and want to donate via the link through the agency it will be eligible to use as tax credit. 

Tax credits are way more beneficial than a tax deduction. A deduction will lower your taxable income whereas a tax credit will directly reduce the tax amount owed. 

Let me try to explain. (If your not in Arizona or not interested in this topic, scroll to the bottom for our link) 

Let's say you run your Arizona state tax numbers and find out you will owe $600 dollars. If you donate the max amount as a single person, which is $526, you tax liability will drop from $600 to $74 dollars because $600-$526=$74. 

If you are a married person in the scenario the max amount that can be applied is $1,051. 

If we use the same scenario as above, your owed amount of $600 will reduce to $0 and you will have a $451 credit because $1051-$600= $451.  That credit can be carried over for five consecutive years. Meaning that if the following year you owed $200, you can use the remaining credit of $451 to reduce your amount owed to $0 and still have $251 remaining that you can carry over 4 more years because $451-$200 = $251. 

I hope this is making sense to you. 

This is a super cool thing that Arizona allows you to do. It's basically allowing you to control where your money goes. If you owe Arizona taxes, instead of just writing the state a check or doing a direct deposit, and never knowing what that money is being used, you can donate to a certified charitable organization and direct your tax dollars to the specific charitable need/organization you want to support. 

So, if you or someone you know owes state taxes please spread the word that they can donate to our adopt fund instead of paying the taxes directly to the state. 

If you have any questions I found this Phoenix Children's Hospital website to be a very helpful resource.

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We will keep you posted on how the fundraising is going and if we set up any events to help with this. If any of you reading happen to know other ways to fundraise we are open to any and all ideas. 

LINKS BELOW - feel free to pass along and share with anyone :) 

•  Link to our Christian Family Care AdoptFund page -----> click here 
• MAKE SURE YOU SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM, DO NOT USE THE DONATE BUTTON ON THE TOP LEFT OF SCREEN (that button takes you to the general fund...the donate section at the bottom of our page is what is designated to us) 
• url if needed is this:  https://cfcare.org/cody-and-danielle-829/

• Link to our GoFundMe ---> click here

• Link to our clickable digital flyer ---> click here 
• Once you open the link there are 3 dots in the corner that give you an option to share the link or you can always just copy and paste it into a text message or email. 

• url if needed is this:  https://www.canva.com/design/DAF5KlEXDB4/AuPvlnOEmP8ODI4fFcngsg/view?utm_content=DAF5KlEXDB4&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link&utm_source=editor

• You might see a statement on the AdoptFund page that mentions something about no guarantee that the funds will go to us. I asked about it and this is the response I got back from the agency "That verbiage is legally required and covers the agency for situations when the adoptive family chooses not to continue for whatever reason. We will do whatever we can to ensure that money that is designated to you goes to you but there are extenuating circumstances when that is not possible. Sometimes adoptive families become pregnant and choose not to return or they might move out of state or simply decide that they no longer want to adopt. In those situations the donated funds would be released into CFC’s general fund".  As long as you make sure your on our specific fund page (Cody and Danielle -829) we will receive the money. 

• If you prefer to mail something to the agency, I have a form to do that - please reach out to me directly 

• For those outside of Arizona or are not interested in the tax credit option, we have had family give directly to us. So that is always an option too, and I can provide you with our address... whatever you feel comfortable with. 

We REALLY appreciate your help with this next step and know we can't do it without your help. 

One step closer to getting to meet this little babe that is somewhere out there growing 

🧡🧡🧡