Helpusadopt.org hosts its fall wine event and fundraiser on the Main Line

Helpusadopt.org, which awards grants to families pursuing adoption, raised more than $100,000 at its Fall Wine event, held Oct. 1 at Fleming's Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar in Radnor. Among the 150 guests were Pennsylvania Ballet artistic director Roy Kaiser and his wife, Melissa, of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and event co-chairs Lisa Glassner Kovacs and David Kovacs, and Amy and Joel Eads.

The national nonprofit is based in New York but has strong ties to Philadelphia. Becky Fawcett, a Villanova native who attended the Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, and her husband, Kipp Fawcett, founded the program in 2007 after incurring enormous costs adopting their two children Jake, 7, and Brooke, 3.

"Adoption is a very expensive process," says Becky. "We saw a need out there to create an organization to flat-out help people, with no strings attached - just help." Since its founding, the nonprofit has given out $495,000 in adoption grants to 65 families. Grants totaling $75,000 in amounts of up to $15,000 to help with the costs of adoption are distributed twice a year in June and December.