Dawn C. Degenhardt
Biography
Dawn Degenhardt, Founder and CEO of MAPS, along with her dedicated directors and staff, are celebrating 25 years of bringing children and families together. Previous to moving to Maine, Dawn was a child advocate in Cleveland, Ohio where she founded the Ohio chapter of COAC (Council on Adoptable Children) and was a pioneer in changing the foster care/adoption system at a time before picture listings, recruitment of families, and all the things we take for granted today. Dawn and another parent founded Spaulding of Beechbrook, which is still in existence today placing special needs children. Dawn and her husband Ed (known as Hunk) started their family by adopting two domestic infants and Dawn was an at-home Mom. By the time their second child was a year old the urge to do it again arose and Dawn and Hunk pursued an older child adoption. The next two years would see them both advocating hard for these children and finally, within five months, four more children joined the ranks – one from an Indian Adoption Program out west and three from Vietnam. They now had six!!! They moved to Maine to start their own business and adopted three more older children; two from DHS and one from India. Now their ranks had swelled to nine. Upon moving to Maine and completing her family, Dawn again became concerned about the children still waiting in the foster care system and she decided to do something about it. She founded MAPS in Houlton, Maine – again with the mission of placing special needs children – by recruiting parents for these specific children and educating and training the parents in a group setting.
http://mapsadopt.org
Articles
The Joy Story
"Don't call me until they are on the plane and it has taken off", I said in utter frustration. Another postponement - how many had there been. It had been 12 months since we had heard we would be... [more]
My Son - the Doctor
The front page of the newspaper that morning was a story about a family who had just returned from Vietnam with twins. It showed Johanna feeding her three babies - one blond boy and dark haired girl... [more]
