Mike Rusch

Gladney Center for Adoption’s Humanitarian Aid Program

Millions of children around the world become orphaned every year, each by a trauma of separation from their family that is uniquely painful.

For many, abandonment, poverty, court intervention, disease and death mark their paths to orphanages that work hard, but invariably and significantly are underfunded and understaffed.

Of the millions, Gladney will be able to place only hundreds for adoption in any given year. Missing out on the opportunity to be adopted into a loving, permanent home, the vast majority are the children left behind, those who will live an orphan’s life until they age-out — older teenagers released to the world without the life skills, job training or self-worth needed to be safe and successful.