Mission Statement

S.O.S. is a non-profit organization committed to maintaining relationships between our internationally adopted children and their siblings that were left behind. We encourage adoption when appropriate, but also work to raise awareness about the plight of orphaned siblings and how to create alternatives to adoption in order to foster sibling relationships, when adoption is not feasible.

Save These Orphans!

How we got started:
Mary Kirkpatrick and Joan Knipe met in a local Russian Club in Phoenix, Arizona, where their adopted children took Russian lessons. Both were concerned about their children making contact with their siblings. After much research, Mary made several contacts in Russia and was able to find her daughter's sister in Siberia. Mary then helped Joan locate her son's sister. Soon Russian Family Search, a non-profit search firm in Russia, was created.

After locating Olga, Joan's family wanted Olga to be with them. However, it was apparent that there were no laws in the U.S. for adoptive parents to reunite their children with siblings abroad.

As Mary's search firm grew, more and more families took part on Mary's newsgroup. The messages discussing reuniting siblings grew also. Soon many families were working to reunite siblings.

Keri Cahill, a mom trying to adopt her daughter's sister, made contact with a child advocate in Massachusetts, who kindly gave her advice. After Joan's family experienced several failed attempts to bring her son's sister home, Keri helped Joan connect with her child advocate.

Joan and the child advocate discussed how many families are wanting to foster contact between their adopted children and their siblings. They discussed how this relates to current state requirements which ensures siblings remain in contact after domestic adoption. Out of this conversation, S.O.S. was born and it didn't take long to find dozens of families with a shared interest to foster connections between their adopted children and siblings.

Our focus started with families adopting in Russia due to our networks. However, our movement includes helping siblings located around the world. As our focus is changing, U.S. laws will help anyone who has adopted internationally.

Our Goal: Foster connections and communication through annual visits. Connection between siblings is a very important relationship and our children have a right to know their siblings. We want to help our children maintain contact with their siblings.