Wednesday’s Child Foundation, Inc. is the dream of local Portland, Oregon, news anchor Jeff Gianola. For more than 20 years, Jeff has featured Oregon’s hard-to-adopt children in a regular weekly news segment called “Wednesday’s Child.” Working in association with Oregon’s Services to Children and Families (SCF), and with their full support and admiration, Jeff is teamed with a child or group of siblings currently available for adoption. Each segment highlights the child’s natural enthusiasm and desire for close family ties and loving parents. SCF directly credits Jeff’s “Wednesday’s Child” program with successfully placing more than 500 children into loving, adoptive families.
WCF’s board of directors is dedicated to helping better the lives of foster children. Wednesday’s Child Foundation, Inc. has no paid staff and very little overhead. Your donations go directly to the children who need them.
Although hundreds of children and families have benefited from the “Wednesday’s Child” program, Jeff recognized the need to do more. He became increasingly aware that state funds barely made a dent in offsetting the actual living expenses and costs of raising children in foster care. Because State funds are limited and only cover basic needs, children in foster care miss out on valuable learning opportunities and life-enriching experiences that most children outside of foster care regularly enjoy. These life-changing and affirming experiences might be as simple as participating on the school football team or going to summer camp. Experiences that bolster self-confidence and self-esteem and give foster children hope for a brighter future and the ability to discover hidden talents or passions they might never have realized.
In early 2000, Jeff assembled a group of well-respected individuals with diverse backgrounds who are experts in their fields, together to form a new nonprofit known as the “Wednesday’s Child Foundation, Inc.” This group of professionals volunteers their time to meet regularly and develop goals and long-range fundraising ideas in order to build this nonprofit foundation from the ground up and to offer Oregon’s foster children, and their foster caregivers, a new resource to apply for funds which will be used to further their personal growth and offset the ever-increasing cost of basic childhood experiences.