Upper Marlboro woman honored for adoption programs

The Martin Luther King Jr. Foundation presented McNeil-Hayes with one of two Dream Family awards at the foundation’s first awards ceremony Jan. 24 for her work with families and communities.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Foundation was formed in November 2007 to educate the community on the principles and teachings of the slain civil rights leader, according to the foundation’s Web site.

McNeil-Hayes said people who want to adopt children could do with some help.

‘‘When you have families willing to step forward and take a child into their home, everything possible should be done to help them, and that’s what I’m here to do,” said McNeil-Hayes, who started the nonprofit in 2003. ‘‘I don’t care what your bank account is or what your education is. I’m willing to help anyone.”

McNeil-Hayes, who has four adopted children of her own and one biological son, said the coalition has helped nearly 60 families of adopted children in a number of ways during its four-year history.

It helps families fill out paperwork needed to complete the adoption process, provides advice to parents and adopted children when a problem arises, and puts families in touch with doctors, lawyers, counselors, social workers and daycare providers, she said.

‘‘When families need services and they don’t know where to go, they come and find me and I do everything I can for them,” she said.

The office is staffed with an assistant, Jazelle Booker, who helps set up meetings with families and answers the daily stream of phone calls.

‘‘I help whoever calls me and needs the services I provide. I don’t turn anyone away,” McNeil-Hayes said.

She said her nonprofit is primarily self-funded and also receives donations from members of the community and families that she has helped. She said she is considering applying for county or federal grants.

McNeil-Hayes said her first contact with parents of adopted children was in 1998, when she was selected director of the One Church, One Child adoption ministry at the Sanctuary at Kingdom Square Church in Capitol Heights.

As director, she continues to travel to churches around the region encouraging families to adopt. She convenes a twice-monthly support group for parents of adopted children.

It was during her activities at the church that she thought of starting her nonprofit.

‘‘I decided to start the coalition so I could sit down with families and help them individually and not talk to them in generalities in a group,” she said.

In 1991, McNeil-Hayes decided to adopt a child of her own — 3-year-old April — who had undergone two heart surgeries and had spent her entire life at The Hospital for Sick Children in Washington, D.C.

She learned afterwards that April had three other siblings, whom she also adopted — Laura, now 17, Jerrika, who is 26, and Philip, 28. She has a 40-year-old biological son, Jon, who works for the federal Department of Labor in the District.