PORT ANGELES — Retired Port Angeles High School teacher Jim Cornell calls himself “elderly” — but 5-year-old Devlin has taken care of that.
Devlin is Cornell’s foster son, a “special needs” child.
And Cornell has ample experience with those words.
His 2½ decades in the classroom, plus many years as a foster parent, have taught him that every child has a different way of learning.
Meeting their needs is a matter of listening. Carefully.
These days, Cornell, a single septuagenarian, is listening to someone he loves.
This little boy, he said, has “brought the delightful, shrill and joyous laughter into my life again.”
Cornell is among the local people — men, women, singles, couples, seniors — who have fostered and adopted children through Adoption Advocates International in Port Angeles.
This November during National Adoption Month, the agency is marking its 30th anniversary and the placement of nearly 4,500 children in families since its founding.
From its offices in a yellow house at Seventh and Peabody streets, Adoption Advocates has matched children with parents in every U.S. state plus nine other nations.
Celebration on Monday
From 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. Monday, Adoption Advocates is inviting the community to celebrate its 30th anniversary as well as some other news: the arrival of interim Executive Director Brad Collins.
Collins, who was re-elected earlier this month to his position on the Port Angeles City Council, will join the Adoption Advocates staff to host a party with cake and beverages at the agency at 709 S. Peabody St.
There’s no charge, and the public is welcome.
The house is filled with computers, desks and file cabinets — and abundant pictures of children adopted by families on and off the Peninsula.
Adoption Advocates places kids — babies on up to teenagers — from Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, China, Thailand and many other countries, including foster children from the U.S.
About 2,000 youngsters have come from Ethiopia, while another 1,000 are from the state foster care system.
“One of the strong suits of AAI is that they partner with the parents,” said Cornell, “and stay only a phone call or email away” to support mothers and fathers before, during and after adoption.
Reflection of dedication
“Gay Knutson is our caseworker, and she is a reflection of AAI’s dedication,” Cornell added.
Knutson and the Adoption Advocates staff, including Kathy Sculley, Ky Bower, Linda Lyver and Yvette Nichols, also contend with continually changing state, federal and foreign laws.
The agency was connected with Layla House, an orphanage in Ethiopia, for many years.
That orphanage was shut down after the Ethiopian government changed its regulations.
Merrily Ripley, an adoptive parent 17 times over, founded Adoption Advocates in 1983 and retired in the fall of 2011.
Since then, the agency has not been able to find a permanent executive director.
Collins praised Knutson and the rest of the staff for keeping the agency running — and busy — in the face of financial struggles.
Seeking director
One day in late September, Collins got a phone call from Knutson. He was on a short vacation visiting friends in North Carolina, having retired in August after 4½ years as deputy director of resource development for Serenity House of Clallam County.
But Knutson, known for her assertiveness, told Collins that Adoption Advocates needed a director. Now.
She knew Collins had the chops.
Before Serenity House, he’d served as Port Angeles’ Community Development Director for 15 years and worked for the cities of Arlington and Sultan.
To Knutson’s request for help, Collins said, essentially, “Sure.”
By mid-October, he was working at Adoption Advocates for “not much money,” he said.
Understands adoption
Collins is himself an adoptee.
His adoptive parents brought him home soon after his birth in Flint, Mich., 65 years ago.
His mother and father “were wonderful people,” he said.
“I was so lucky. I want other kids to have the good experience I had.
“I never experienced being unwanted. I never experienced neglect.”
Adoption Advocates needs an interim director who can run its business side, Collins added.
He is determined to stabilize the agency so that it can hire a permanent director and continue its work on behalf of children and families.
“I’m not going anywhere” any time soon, Collins added.
“I am excited to contribute to a program that means so much.”
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
