FRIENDS OPEN ADOPTION AGENCY

Dayton Daily News (OH)

Author: Yvonne Mullins Warren County Bureau

After three successful international adoptions and one failed attempt to get two children out of Vietnam, Mary Ormond has opened what she says is the first international adoption agency in southwestern Ohio, called Cherub Inc.

Ellen Rice, her friend and partner, has a bachelor's degree in marketing and Ormond has a master's degree in nursing. Between the two of them, they have five adoptions. `Everyone that works at Cherub has adopted a child,' Ormond said.

`We started helping other people fill out their dossiers and realized we weren't that far away from the whole adoption agency,' Ormond said. `We contacted the Ohio Department of Human Services to learn the laws and regulations for starting an international adoption agency,' she said.

When she worked at a hospital, babies who were up for adoption were called cherubs, because they didn't have names yet. That is where they came up with the name for their nonprofit organization.

The agency has three licensed social workers that are doing home studies, which are necessary before families can be approved for adoption. `You could spend $1,500 to $3,000 just for home studies. We can do them much cheaper,' Ormond said.

`We specialize in children from Vietnam and China, since that is where we are experienced. We know the bad situations those babies are in. In China, you can only get girls, and there are nine orphanages full of little girls,' Ormond said.

* FOR MORE INFORMATION, contact Cherub Inc. by telephone at 748-4812 or by e-mail at Cherubinc@aol.com.