Skip to main content

News & Events

Triad Advocate and Volunteer Awards

Triad Advocate of the Year Award

The Triad Advocate of the Year Award recognizes individuals who have made a significant contribution to the adoption field as demonstrated by a specific accomplishment, project, program or milestone, meeting one or more of the following criteria:

  • Contributed through exceptional volunteer efforts.
  • Influenced the wider community through their advocacy and outreach efforts.
  • Improved the lives of individual children and teens waiting for adoption.
  • Enhanced the experiences adoption triad members by providing information, advocacy, or other support.

Volunteer Award

The Volunteer Award (formerly the Founder’s Award) recognizes outstanding volunteer service, the spirit by which this organization was founded in 1988 and remains critical today. Those of you who know Adoption Network Cleveland’s history know that Executive Director Betsie Norris was a volunteer for seven years building the organization before she came on staff in 1995.

Previous Triad Advocate of the Year Winners

  • 2017

    Linda Bellini, search volunteer
    Andrea Ginter, Cuyahoga County Dept. of Children and Family Services
    Amanda Reno, DNAFindingU

  • 2016

    April Dinwoodie, Donaldson Adoption Institute and adoptee
    Becky Drinnen, adoptee and advocate
    The George Fund Foundation
    Tara Shook, Ohio Dept. of Job and Family Services

  • 2015

    Danielle Gadomski, Littleton Legal Aid Society of Cleveland
    Jeanne Hood, birthparent and advocate
    Rita Price, Columbus Dispatch

  • 2014

    Susan Anthony, birthparent and advocate
    Jean Strauss, filmmaker
    Dave Burke, State Senator
    Bill Beagle, State Senator
    Dorothy Pelanda, State Representative
    Nickie Antonio, State Representative

  • 2013

    Diahanna Robertson, Bellefaire
    John Adams, Adoption Equity Ohio
    Mike Martindale, Adoption Equity Ohio

  • 2012

    Dominique Moceanu, Olympian and author
    David Crampton, Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences

  • 2011

    Kate Livingston, Ohio Birthparent Group
    Terrell Howard, Foster Alumnus and Advocate
    Danita Harris, WEWS NewsChannel 5

  • 2010

    Lisa Dickson, Foster Care Alumni of America
    Zelma Brown, Cuyahoga County Dept. of Children and Family Services

  • 2009

    Jim McCafferty, Cuyahoga County Dept. of Children and Family Services
    Jim Ewinger, The Cleveland Plain Dealer

  • 2008
  • 2007

    Speaker Jon Husted, Ohio House of Representatives
    Hon. Peter Sikora, Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court

  • 2006

    Bill Gruber, Concern for Children
    Michael Lehan, Cleveland Browns
    Regina Brett, The Cleveland Plain Dealer

  • 2005

    Deborah & Clinton Wilson, Foster Parent Support Association
    Kirstin McNamara, birthmother and advocate

  • 2004
  • 2003

    Dr. Anna Mandalakas, Adoption Health Center, University Hospitals
    Quo Vadis Ellison, foster parent and advocate

  • 2002

    Kim Wheeler, WKYC-TV
    Regina Kupecky, author, trainer and therapist
    Barbara Irvin, Family Adoption Consultants
    Jerry Blake, Cuyahoga County Dept. of Children and Family Services

  • 2001

    Denise Goodman, trainer and consultant
    Maureen Heffernan, trainer and consultant
    Pat Burns, Concern for Children

  • 2000

    Elaine Thompson, Clinical Social Worker
    Mandel School of Applied Sciences Graduate School of Social Work
    Betsy Keefer, Institute for Human Services

  • 1999
  • 1998

Previous Volunteer Award Winners

  • 2017

    Sherri Appleton

  • 2016

    Kay Williams

  • 2015

    Jim and Pam Deskins

  • 2014

    Joan Soucie

  • 2013

    Rita Simpson-Vlach

  • 2012

    Lisa Buescher

  • 2011

    Estes Turner

  • 2010

    Sarah Hastings

  • 2009

    Beth Szule

  • 2008

    Marty Kosmin

  • 2007

    Alfonso Russell

  • 2006

    Ellen Hunt
    Rick Santich

  • 2005

    Holly Kowalski
    Moira McGreer

  • 2004

    Linda Katz
    Niki Hauk

  • 2003

    Kim Donato
    Kirsten McNamara

  • 2002

    Chris Esmurdoc

  • 2001

    Jeanne Hood
    Susan Burlage

  • 2000

    Pat Kosovich

  • 1999

    Joyce Senger

  • 1988-1998

    Ten individuals were honored for their dedication and service during Adoption Network Cleveland's first 10 years:
    Beth Brindo
    Susan Kacerek Burlage
    Jodi Sandler Cowgill
    Kim Ducatman
    Lucia Hill
    Dottie Klemm
    Betsie Norris
    Susan Saltzman
    Linda Schellentrager
    Estes Turner

Our Impact This Year (Oct. 2018-Sept. 2019)

  • People Served

    790

  • Helpline Inquiries

    370

  • Volunteer Hours

    1,665

© 2019 Adoption Network Cleveland
Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

  1. What Information Do We Collect? When you visit our website you may provide us with two types of information: personal information you knowingly choose to disclose that is collected on an individual basis and website use information collected on an aggregate basis as you and others browse our website.
  2. Personal Information You Choose to Provide We may request that you voluntarily supply us with personal information, including your email address, postal address, home or work telephone number and other personal information for such purposes as correspondence, placing an order, requesting an estimate, or participating in online surveys. If you choose to correspond with us through email, we may retain the content of your email messages together with your email address and our responses. We provide the same protections for these electronic communications that we employ in the maintenance of information received by mail and telephone.
  3. Website Use Information Similar to other websites, our site may utilize a standard technology called "cookies" (see explanation below, "What Are Cookies?") and web server logs to collect information about how our website is used. Information gathered through cookies and server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our website, and the sites visited just before and just after ours. This information is collected on an aggregate basis. None of this information is associated with you as an individual.
  4. How Do We Use the Information That You Provide to Us? Broadly speaking, we use personal information for purposes of administering our business activities, providing service and support and making available other products and services to our customers and prospective customers. Occasionally, we may also use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. The lists used to send you product and service offers are developed and managed under our traditional standards designed to safeguard the security and privacy of all personal information provided by our users. You may at any time to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers.
  5. What Are Cookies? Cookies are a feature of web browser software that allows web servers to recognize the computer used to access a website. Cookies are small pieces of data that are stored by a user's web browser on the user's hard drive. Cookies can remember what information a user accesses on one web page to simplify subsequent interactions with that website by the same user or to use the information to streamline the user's transactions on related web pages. This makes it easier for a user to move from web page to web page and to complete commercial transactions over the Internet. Cookies should make your online experience easier and more personalized.
  6. How Do We Use Information Collected From Cookies? We use website browser software tools such as cookies and web server logs to gather information about our website users' browsing activities, in order to constantly improve our website and better serve our users. This information assists us to design and arrange our web pages in the most user-friendly manner and to continually improve our website to better meet the needs of our users and prospective users. Cookies help us collect important business and technical statistics. The information in the cookies lets us trace the paths followed by users to our website as they move from one page to another. Web server logs allow us to count how many people visit our website and evaluate our website's visitor capacity. We do not use these technologies to capture your individual email address or any personally identifying information about you.
  7. Notice of New Services and Changes Occasionally, we may use the information we collect to notify you about important changes to our website, new services and special offers we think you will find valuable. As a user of our website, you will be given the opportunity to notify us of your desire not to receive these offers by clicking on a response box when you receive such an offer or by sending us an email request.
  8. How Do We Secure Information Transmissions? When you send confidential personal information to us on our website, a secure server software which we have licensed encrypts all information you input before it is sent to us. The information is scrambled en route and decoded once it reaches our website. Other email that you may send to us may not be secure unless we advise you that security measures will be in place prior to your transmitting the information. For that reason, we ask that you do not send confidential information such as Social Security, credit card, or account numbers to us through an unsecured email.
  9. How Do We Protect Your Information? Information Security -- We utilize encryption/security software to safeguard the confidentiality of personal information we collect from unauthorized access or disclosure and accidental loss, alteration or destruction. Evaluation of Information Protection Practices -- Periodically, our operations and business practices are reviewed for compliance with organization policies and procedures governing the security, confidentiality and quality of our information. Employee Access, Training and Expectations -- Our organization values, ethical standards, policies and practices are committed to the protection of user information. In general, our business practices limit employee access to confidential information, and limit the use and disclosure of such information to authorized persons, processes and transactions.
  10. How Can You Access and Correct Your Information? You may request access to all your personally identifiable information that we collect online and maintain in our database by emailing us using the contact form provided to you within the site structure of our website.
  11. Do We Disclose Information to Outside Parties? We may provide aggregate information about our customers, sales, website traffic patterns and related website information to our affiliates or reputable third parties, but this information will not include personally identifying data, except as otherwise provided in this privacy policy.
  12. What About Legally Compelled Disclosure of Information? We may disclose information when legally compelled to do so, in other words, when we, in good faith, believe that the law requires it or for the protection of our legal rights.
  13. Permission to Use of Materials The right to download and store or output the materials in our website is granted for the user's personal use only, and materials may not be reproduced in any edited form. Any other reproduction, transmission, performance, display or editing of these materials by any means mechanical or electronic without our express written permission is strictly prohibited. Users wishing to obtain permission to reprint or reproduce any materials appearing on this site may contact us directly.
Terms & Conditions

Terms & Conditions

Donation Refund Policy

We are grateful for your donation and support of our organization. If you have made an error in making your donation or change your mind about contributing to our organization please contact us. Refunds are returned using the original method of payment. If you made your donation by credit card, your refund will be credited to that same credit card.

Automated Recurring Donation Cancellation

Ongoing support is important to enabling projects to continue their work, so we encourage donors to continue to contribute to projects over time. But if you must cancel your recurring donation, please notify us.

Powered by Firespring