2019 Fulfilling Families Luncheon

F

or more than 42 years, Arms Wide Adoption Services has provided foster care, adoption, post adoption, and post permanency services, all at no cost, to children in the Texas foster care system and their adoptive families. Since its inception in 1977, Arms Wide Adoption Services has placed more than 2,100 children from the Texas foster care system in loving adoptive families, enabling them to experience the joys of childhood in a supportive home and giving them the opportunity to reach their full potential.

We hope you will support the children and families Arms Wide Adoption Services serves by supporting the Fulfilling Families Luncheon, which will take place on Thursday, May 2, 2019, at Houston Country Club. We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Jay Tarnow as our keynote speaker. Dr. Tarnow is a board-certified child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist and considered a leading national expert on childhood and family stress. His eye-opening keynote will discuss the importance of attachment, how primary caregivers and infants form this emotional bond, and its implications on the development of personality, future relationships, and society as a whole. We are also elated to have Frank Billingsley, KPRC Channel 2’s Chief Meteorologist, back as this year’s luncheon emcee.

Please join us in transforming the lives of children in need of safe and nurturing adoptive families by becoming a Fulfilling Families Luncheon underwriter. Your investment in this event will help ensure Arms Wide Adoption Services can continue to expand its reach in order to help even more children in foster care connect with the loving adoptive families they need and deserve.

We hope to see you at the Fulfilling Families Luncheon in May!

To reserve your sponsorship, buy a ticket, or make a donation, please click here.

Event Overview

When

Thurs, May 2, 2019
11:30 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Where

Houston Country Club

1 Potomac Drive
Houston, TX 77057

Available sponsorship and ticket opportunities:

Champions – $10,000
Benefactors – $7,500
Advocates – $5,000
Supporters – $3,500
Friends – $2,000
Underwriter Ticket – $500
Individual Ticket – $200
Purchase Now

Speaker

Jay D. Tarnow, M.D.
Board Certified Child, Adolescent, and Adult Psychiatrist

Dr. Jay Tarnow is a board certified Child, Adolescent, and Adult Psychiatrist and is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and of the American Psychiatric Association.

Having spent 40 years researching neurodevelopmental disorders from a biological, psychological, and social perspective, he is considered a leading expert in Neuropsychiatry. Dr. Tarnow was the first to define the self- management deficits of ADHD and Tourette’s Disorder and has treated thousands of patients with his Self-Management Program. In the past 10 years he has been researching the use of neurological markers and the human genome to specifically define which medications will work for an individual patient.

Dr. Tarnow has been a consultant to the National Institute of Mental Health and numerous healthcare organizations. He served as the Executive and Medical Director of Houston Child Guidance Center, the Director of Child Psychiatry Training at UT Medical School, and the Director of Pediatric Psychiatry at Texas Children’s Hospital.  He is currently a Clinical Associate Professor at Baylor College of Medicine and the University Of Texas Medical School.

Emcee

Frank Billingsley

KPRC2 Chief Meteorologist Frank Billingsley has been Houston’s television weatherman for over twenty-five years. Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1960, Frank was adopted and raised in Mountain Brook, Alabama. He has recently authored Swabbed & Found, a memoir of his DNA journey to find family and discover the myriad branches of his biological family tree. Frank found that and more, discovering just what makes a family and how we really define family in our lives. Authentic to the core, his book is an inspirational saga of courage and tenacity.

Frank received his Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Washington and Lee University and a Certificate of Broadcast Meteorology from Mississippi State. He began his TV career as a meteorologist in Virginia, then to Mississippi, and eventually Texas. Frank lives in Houston with his husband, Kevin Gilliard. They have one son, two dogs, and now one book. And a whole lot of family.

Event Committee

Luncheon Chairs

Michele Mendenhall Buckley and Emily Kelley

Host Committee

Caroline King Billipp, Sommer Bukowski, Stacy Burgess, Meagan Burgin, Chita and Lane Craft, Allison Crosswell , Emily Burguières Dalicandro , Deneige Dooley, Carolyn Dorros, Cari Gill, Amy Goldstein, Lauren and Rob Gray, Ashley Hanna, Neekie Kashani, Natalie Kirklin, Elizabeth Lester , Blair Richardson Loocke, Kim Lucas, Courtney Lundquist, Kristen and Joe Lyons, Nancy Mendenhall , Sheila Neylon, Janice Nicholson, Linwood Olson, Angela Perry, Missy Pitts, Suzann Cooley Richardson, Caroline Simons, Dawn Swanson, Tara Treleaven, and Ofelia H. Vujasinovic

2018 Event Photos