09/14/2026
🎄 ADOPT-A-FAMILY FOR THE HOLIDAYS MN™ — OUR 2026 SEASON
I have started and stopped writing this announcement more times than I can count.
The truth is, for a while, Brian and I weren't sure there was going to be an Adopt-A-Family season this year at all.
This has been an incredibly difficult year, not just for us personally, but for several of the people who make this program possible. We have volunteers facing cancer. One of our longtime volunteers, who, herself is in remission from breast cancer, recently lost her father. We have volunteers who are simply exhausted after years and years of giving so much of themselves.
And I understand that exhaustion because I feel it, too.
My own health has been a roller coaster this year. I recently came home after a 10-day hospital stay. I've dealt with significant blood loss, blood transfusions, ongoing vitamin and electrolyte infusions, surgeries and more medical appointments than I care to count. Brian is dealing with a back injury, while also working full-time.
So when I say we are scaling back this Christmas, I mean **REALLY** scaling back.
In previous seasons, we have worked with thousands of families. Last year alone, approximately 4,000 families were sponsored.
That will not happen this year.
This season, we are intentionally focusing on a few hundred families rather than thousands.
I don't have an exact number or a magical cutoff. I think I will simply know when we have reached our capacity. And when we reach it, applications will close.
That's difficult for me to say because my instinct has always been, "We'll figure it out."
But after 15 seasons, I am finally learning that sometimes "figuring it out" also means knowing when to stop.
There is an enormous amount of work people never see behind this program. For every application, there are conversations, documentation, verification, matching, sponsor communication, questions, follow-ups, transportation and problem-solving. When you're working with thousands of families, you're not just looking at thousands of applications. You're talking to thousands of human beings with complicated lives and difficult stories.
And then you're doing the same thing on the sponsor side.
My phone has essentially been an additional appendage every Christmas for 15 years. 😂
This year, my body has made it abundantly clear that it would like to renegotiate that arrangement.
So we're listening.
🎅🏼 PUBLIC APPLICATIONS ARE NOW OPEN FOR DIRECT SPONSORSHIP
I have already processed many of our referred client families and I am now opening a limited number of applications to the public.
Our public program is for Minnesota families with children under age 18.
You must be the child's parent or legal guardian to apply. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends, etc. cannot apply on behalf of someone else's children.
Foster parents will need documentation showing legal placement.
We do verify applications.
Unfortunately, we learned during our first few years that we had to.
For verification, we generally need:
• Minnesota driver's license or Minnesota state ID
• Birth certificate, crib card or school identification/documentation for each child
• Proof that you currently reside in Minnesota, such as a recent bill, county paperwork, phone bill or other current dated mail in your name
• Legal guardianship/foster placement paperwork when applicable
PLEASE NEVER SEND US A SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER OR SOCIAL SECURITY CARD.
We do not need it. We do not want it. Please protect that information.
Medical cards generally cannot be used as children's age verification because they do not contain the information we need.
Applications may be sent through Facebook Messenger or email. Please do not text application documents to me this season. My text messaging has been unreliable and I do not want anyone's application disappearing into the technological abyss.
🎁 HOW DIRECT SPONSORSHIP WORKS
Direct sponsorship has always been the heart of this program.
Sponsors are able to look through available family stories and choose a family that resonates with them and that they realistically feel able to help.
Once I connect a direct sponsor with a family, the sponsor communicates directly with that family and is responsible for delivering the gifts to them.
At that point, I step back.
You are welcome to communicate with one another, coordinate delivery and make that connection personally. I only step back in if there is a problem or someone needs assistance.
This year we are also deliberately keeping Christmas wishes modest.
Please expect approximately $30–$50 per child rather than large or extravagant requests.
This program has never been about creating a Pinterest-perfect Christmas. It is about making sure children know somebody thought about them.
Parents are not included in the gift sponsorship. The parent's household gift is a holiday meal gift card.
🎄ANONYMOUS SPONSORSHIPS
Many of the families we serve come to us through professional referrals and include individuals classified as vulnerable adults.
Those cases are handled differently.
Because of HIPAA privacy laws and the circumstances surrounding those families, their identifying information is not shared publicly and the sponsorship remains anonymous.
Those gifts are dropped off to one of our approved drop-off locations rather than delivered directly to the family.
🌟 AND THIS YEAR, WE NEED OUR SPONSORS MORE THAN EVER.
We need help networking.
We need you to share our available families.
We need you to tell your friends, coworkers, churches, businesses and community groups about the program.
We need some new sponsors to find us.
Some of you have been sponsoring families with us since the very beginning. Some have been here for a decade. Some found us last Christmas. Some may be reading this for the first time.
Every single one of you matters.
This program has never been Brian and me.
It couldn't be.
Adopt-A-Family exists because hundreds of ordinary people decided, year after year, that somebody else's Christmas mattered to them.
This year we're asking that community to help carry a little more of the load.
🚐 A VERY DIFFERENT DELIVERY SEASON
We are also NOT renting a U-Haul truck this year.
Anyone who has been around for previous Christmases has seen those trucks packed literally floor-to-ceiling with gifts.
And then Brian and I get home and spend approximately eight years unloading them into our garage. 😂
After my shoulder surgeries and with Brian's back injury, that simply isn't physically reasonable anymore.
We will be doing pickups throughout the season using our elderly but determined Dodge Grand Caravan.
Is this the wisest logistical plan we've ever devised?
Possibly not.
Are we going to see what happens?
Absolutely. 😂
We currently have a confirmed drop-off location in West St. Paul, as well as our location in Big Lake, and we hope to establish a couple of additional Twin Cities locations.
For those additional locations, however, we are specifically looking for longtime sponsors or volunteers with whom we already have an *established, trusted relationship*
A drop-off host would simply receive clearly labeled gifts, confirm that they were dropped off and communicate with me so we can coordinate pickup.
Because families trust us with their information and their Christmas gifts, this isn't a volunteer position we can open to people we don't already know.
❣️ ONE MORE THING...
I want to say something to the people who have loved this program for years.
I don't know what the future looks like.
Maybe this is simply our scaled-back year.
Maybe it becomes a new model for how we operate.
Maybe Brian and I are approaching the point where we eventually hand the reins to someone else or retire from doing this on this scale.
I genuinely don't know yet.
What I do know is that this year has taught me something I haven't always been very good at learning:
When your body, your life and the universe are all telling you to slow down, eventually you have to listen.
Brian and I would like to experience a little bit of Christmas this year, too.
Not just boxes.
Not just spreadsheets.
Not just Messenger notifications at 2:00 in the morning.
Not just driving hundreds of miles and wondering how on earth we're going to fit one more bicycle into a Dodge Grand Caravan. 😂
Christmas.
🎅🏼🎄🛷🎁☃️🍽️🦌🎶🔔🧣⛪✝️❄️🕯️
And after 15 years, I think that's okay.
So we're going into this season differently.
Smaller.
More intentionally.
A little tired.
A little vulnerable.
But still here.
We are incredibly grateful for every sponsor, volunteer, donor, social worker, advocate, business and ordinary human being who has walked alongside us during these 15 seasons.
We could never have done this without you.
And this year especially, we cannot do it without you.
So please share our posts.
Please help us network.
Please consider sponsoring a family.
And please have patience with us when responses take a little longer than they have in previous years.
We're doing the best we can with the bodies, bandwidth and slightly questionable minivan God/the universe has given us this year. 😂
Here's to a smaller Christmas season...
but hopefully one that still manages to make a very big difference.
🎄❣️
PUBLIC APPLICATIONS:
Please apply through Facebook Messenger or email. Do not send application documents by text message.
SPONSORS: Watch this page as available families begin being posted. If a family speaks to you, contact me and I will let you know whether they are still available.
LONGTIME/TRUSTED SPONSORS & VOLUNTEERS:
If you're in the Twin Cities and would be willing to serve as one of our limited drop-off locations this year, please reach out privately.
Thank you for giving us the grace to let this season look different.
And thank you for 15 years of believing that neighbors can still take care of neighbors.
Adopt-A-Family For the Holidays MN™
Bethany Nelson-Lieser
[email protected]
