This past Friday evening at the beautiful Neuehouse venue in Hollywood, California, AdoptTogether hosted their second annual Baby Ball Gala in support of World Adoption Day. AdoptTogether, founded by Hank Fortener, is the world’s first and largest crowdfunding platform for adoption.
Tons of Hollywood stars came out Friday night to support the cause including Glee’s Jenna Ushkowitz, Rebecca Romijn and husband Jerry O’Connell, Twilight star Rachelle LeFevre, Impastor’s Sara Rue and so many more.
The glam continued inside the Gala! The crowd enjoyed a Nick Fouquet hat making station with a chance to win a Fouquet custom hat as seen on celebs such as Madonna and Gigi Hadid. Rebecca Gayheart, Elizabeth Berkeley, Rookie Blue’s Missy Peregrym and friends were seen cheering on “Mod” Celebrity Chef Curtis Stone and Code Black’s Raza Jaffrey while they opted to raise money in a carnival style basketball contest with the ultimate prize of a one on one game with LA Laker, Metta World Peace. “Milkshake” singer Kelis, was sure to stop by the Trejo’s Taco truck before heading to the photo booth with friends.
The Baby Ball Gala was a huge success and AdoptTogether will continue to raise awareness of World Adoption Day on November 15th, with celebrities and A-listers alike posting the hands up smiley face to social media in support of this charitable cause. Fun Fact: In just over 4 years, AdoptTogether has helped over 2,200 families raise over $9M for their adoption expenses and bring their child home!
We got to speak with Hank, the founder of AdoptTogether. Check it out!
Congratulations on the event. How excited are you for tonight?
I’m pretty pumped. I’m excited, registration is going well. It’s that combination of being happy that it’s happening and making sure that everything is going right.
Tell us why you started this and where that passion came from.
I started AdoptTogether because I grew up with 36 foster brothers and sisters and I have 8 adopted siblings, so I saw first hand the transformational power of family, and the transformational power of what adoption can do to a family and a child. But, it’s just too expensive. 87% of families who consider adoption say it’s too expensive and decline. We launched AdoptTogether on my 30th birthday which is almost 5 years ago, and we thought hey, this will be a side project we can do for a while. And then it just exploded. We’ve helped 2300 families raise almost 10 million dollars to bring their kids home. Then I go “Oh you have to get people on board, and throw events” because it became bigger than I could manage on my iPhone. So this was our way of recruiting people to a really beautiful and amazing movement.
What an amazing event for an even more amazing cause. You can check out the cause on their website at https://www.adopttogether.org.