Kiel and Carolyn Twietmeyer - Founder of Project Hopeful
Carolyn Twietmeyer founded Project HOPEFUL
after her eyes were opened to the serious and outdated immigration
procedures facing adoptive children of international (and especially
HIV+) children. With a strong desire to adopt children most in
need of a family, she and her husband, Kiel, decided to adopt
a sibling group from Ethiopia with an older child, a child with
HIV/AIDS, and a baby. When they came up against unyielding immigration
delays, the Twietmeyer's partnered with other families facing
similar issues and were eventually successful in reforming US
immigration policy pertaining to international adoption and HIV.
Project HOPEFUL was born of this effort and continues to thrive
under Carolyn's passion and vision. Carolyn's mission in life
is to educate, enable, and encourage families to open their minds
to the possibility of adoption by exposing the needs of children
with HIV and other severe special needs abroad. Her burden for
these children has been further fueled by her subsequent adoption
of a child in the end stages of AIDS and the realization of the
desperation and HOPE for children such as these. Carolyn remains
the Executive Director of Project HOPEFUL, and speaks at many
events to raise awareness and create families for the most vulnerable
children in the world. She continues to advocate for particular
children's adoptions as they cross her desk. The Twietmeyer's
are a home schooling family and reside in Joliet, Illinois Matthew
,U.S. Army 82nd Airborne, Ft Bragg, N.C. (18, bio), Kylie (16,
bio), Brendan (15, bio), Rachel (13, Ethiopia), Ethan (11, bio),
Selah (12, Ethiopia), Gracie (8, bio), Samuel (6, Ethiopia), Hank
(7, bio), Daniel (4, bio), and Seth (3, Ethiopia), and Selah's
brother and sister, Andarge and Eyruselem will be joining the
family SOON from Ethiopia!
Leslie Raneri has spent her life working on HIV/AIDS and other health
and social service issues. Currently completing a PhD in social
work, her dissertation research focuses on HIV counseling and testing
in pregnant adolescents. Her dual masters degrees in public health
and social work, her faith, and her experiences as a maternal and
child HIV social worker have allowed her to understand deeply the
need to make the world a better place for vulnerable populations,
particularly children. But nothing changed her perspective about
this more than becoming a first time single adoptive mother of a
child with HIV/AIDS from Ethiopia and subsequently a second daughter
with HIV from Haiti. Her professional background and experiences
make it easy for her to feel comfortable adopting a child with HIV
and her passion is to help families understand that adopting a child
with HIV is not much different than adopting a child without HIV.
Leslie works to support and educate families of children with HIV/AIDS
through her professional and volunteer activities. Leslie lives
by Eleanor Roosevelt's advice: "It is better to light one small
candle than to curse the darkness." She lives in Texas with
her daughters and in her spare time enjoys reading and volunteering.