Missouri Wendy’s® Customers Help Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption Find Permanent,
Loving Homes for Deserving Children Across the Nation and in Canada

Cornerstones of Care Awarded $63,000 Grant to Support “Wendy’s Wonderful Kids”
adoption recruiter in Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri – The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption has awarded a
$63,000 grant to Cornerstones of Care www.cornerstonesofcare.org to support
a Wendy’s Wonderful Kids adoption recruiter, helping the program expand into
all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Canada this month; and children in
Missouri will see a direct benefit. As an adopted child and an American success
story, Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas believed it was unacceptable for any child
not to have a safe, loving and permanent home. That is why he created the Dave
Thomas Foundation for Adoption – to focus on the thousands of waiting children
in foster care who deserve to be adopted. Wendy’s Wonderful Kids is the signature,
direct-service program of the Foundation that dedicates funds raised by Wendy’s
restaurants directly to finding adoptive homes for children in foster care.

Today, 3,385 children are languishing in Missouri’s foster care system, waiting
to be adopted.

“Wendy’s Wonderful Kids gives hope to Missouri’s children in foster care, who
are just waiting for the right family to find them,” said Thom McNamara,
Community Outreach Director of Cornerstones of Care. “We are thrilled that the
Foundation is helping children in Missouri and nationwide.”

In only two years, Wendy’s Wonderful Kids recruiters have helped more than 1,000
children in foster care be matched with or adopted by their permanent families.

The Wendy’s Wonderful Kids model is simple and effective: Missouri’s Wendy’s
restaurants and their customers raise funds for the Foundation, which used those
funds to issue a grant to Cornerstones of Care. Cornerstones of Care hired a
Wendy’s Wonderful Kids recruiter, who focuses 100 percent of the time on finding
permanent, loving families for Missouri’s children in foster care.

The program’s unique blend of in-store fundraising, a well-managed grants system,
and the hiring of talented, experienced adoption recruiters has proven successful
in increasing the number of children adopted out of foster care.

In 2004, 1,391 children were adopted in from foster care in Missouri, but 3,925
were available for adoption. Many children in foster care can wait five or more
years before they are adopted, and thousands turn 18 and “age out” of the system
each year without ever finding a family.

Now that Wendy’s Wonderful Kids is in all 50 states, the program’s goal to match
8,000 – 10,000 children with adoptive families by 2010 is within reach.

“Children deserve loving, permanent families, and we need people working diligently
to find those families for them,” said Rita Soronen, executive director of the
Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. “Wendy’s Wonderful Kids is a deliberate,
aggressive, accountable program, and it is working.”

According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, more than half a
million children are in the U.S. foster care system, and 114,000 of them are
just waiting to be adopted. They need someone who can devoten the time and
rigorous child-focused strategies to finding them permanent, loving adoptive
families. The job of Wendy’s Wonderful Kids recruiters is to spend that time
and apply their expertise on behalf each child on their caseload.

For more information about the Wendy’s Wonderful Kids program, or to schedule
an interview with Cornerstones of Care or an adoptive family, please contact
Thom McNamara, Community Outreach Director for Cornerstones of Care.


“Wendy’s Wonderful Kids”: Copywrite 2007 Oldemark LLC.
The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption name and design
is a registered trademark of Oldemark LLC and is licensed
to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. The Wendy’s
name is a registered trademark of Oldemark LLC and is
licensed to Wendy’s International, Inc.

Statistics are provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,
Administration for Children and Families Administration on Children, Youth
and Families, Children’s Bureau’s Preliminary FY 2004 Estimates as of
June 2006: www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb.

The Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption is a non-profit 501(c)3 public
charity dedicated to dramatically increasing the adoptions of the more
than 140,000 children in North America’s foster care systems ready and
waiting to be adopted. Created by Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas, who was
adopted as a child, the Foundation spearheads programs such as
Wendy’s Wonderful Kids, which puts adoption recruiters in all 50 states and
Canada to find permanent, loving families for children in the foster care
system, and Adoption-Friendly Workplace, which encourages employers to
offer adoption benefits to their employees. The Foundation also works with
adoption advocates and officials to streamline the adoption process and
make adoption more affordable for families. As the only foundation
dedicated exclusively to foster care adoption, we are driven by Dave’s
simple value: Do what’s best for the child. To learn more about the
Foundation’s work, please visit www.DaveThomasFoundationforAdoption.org.

www.WendysWonderfulKids.com