Our Story

𝐻𝑒𝓁𝓁𝑜 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓇𝑒!!

My name is Brittany and I am the Founder of 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘼𝙙𝙤𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝘾𝙡𝙤𝙨𝙚𝙩! Branden is my dear Husband and together we have three crazy kiddos (with one on the way)! Montana is our youngest and loves all things baby. Boston is our middle child and boy does he live up to that title; he’s loud and loves all the things that have to do with building. Gracie is our oldest and has been a continuous blessing since the day Jesus placed her in my arms at just three days old. She is the inspiration behind The Adopted Closet as we wrapped up our eleven year adoption journey on July 6, 2021.  

I learned about Gracie the night before she was born to a relative we didn’t have much contact with. I could not stop thinking about her for the next couple of days and had an overwhelming  feeling that I would be apart of her life, I just didn’t know how. The first time I held her we were bonded immediately and by the time she was four weeks old I was caring for her full time. The next four years were our “years of tears” and sometimes still feels like just yesterday.

Guardianship was granted when she was four years, six months and five days old. Although this gave us a sense of security, fear was still an ugly visitor in my mind more often than I would like to admit. We had always wanted to adopt her but knew that finances would be a huge obstacle.  

In November of 2020 my brother got married and a lot of family came in from out of town. As my mom was catching up with my cousin Casie, who lives in Arizona, she asked why we had not finalized Gracie’s adoption since we’ve had her since she was an infant. My mom explained to her that the expense of an adoption was great and we didn’t think that it was something that we would be able to afford. Casie immediately offered to pay for everything. She didn’t care what the expense was going to be, she wanted to give us the permanency that came with a  finalized adoption. In January of 2021 we hired the attorneys needed to complete Gracie’s adoption and six months later it was complete! Oh what a happy day that was! The checks Casie signed paid for a lot more than a piece of paper with Gracie’s new name on it. She paid for security, permanency and the removal of anxiety and fear.

From the moment I found out about the blessing Casie wanted to give us, I struggled with how to thank her. To simply say “thank you” did not seem good enough and as hard as I tried, I could not express in words what this blessing meant to us. I decided that the only way to truly thank her was to pass on her blessing to someone else. My mom, Gracie and I immediately started buying clothes from garage sales and telling everyone about our plan to have an “end of-the-summer” sale to help another family with adoption fees. Our community rallied behind us and our cause to pay it forward. There were days that I would go outside and the whole front of our house would be full of bags and boxes of donated clothing items! We were shocked and overjoyed that so many people wanted to help. We soon realized that what we thought would be one-sale to help one-family, would need to turn into a store and a mission to help as many adoptive families as possible. The Adopted Closet is now a nonprofit committed to helping adoptive families with outstanding legal fees. 

We were able to help our first family in 2021 with their adoption of two boys. In 2022 we made a goal to help pay for all of the adoptions that happen on National Adoption Day in Scott County. We met that goal on November 19, 2022 and paid the legal fees for thirteen adoption! What a beautiful and joyous day that was!

We are still trying to figure out what the future holds for the in-person store. Our four car garage holds a lot but we have quickly outgrown that space. We would love to find somewhere that has a lot of storage room but allows us to have a large store as well. Stay up to date on our future endeavors by following us on Facebook and Instagram.