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I am an educator with 25 years of experience as well as an author sharing my life's journey as an adoptee in a world where people are afraid, ashamed, and embarrassed to talk or even ask about adoption. Why is it when we talk about adoption... We whisper? Would we have 125,000 young people in foster care if this wasn't a topic that brought such shame? Would we have young adults aging out of a system without family if the world viewed adoption differently?
After over 45 years of not talking about being adopted, I debuted the story of my adoption journey in my memoir Finding Joi: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Love in 2019. I started “The Belong Project” as an adoption awareness campaign. I am on a mission to bring awareness to the general community to normalize the conversation, heal hearts, bridge gaps, help people find their community, identify resources, and erase adoption shame. If your organization is ready to learn more about adoption legislation, the unspoken challenges adoptees face on a day to day basis, and to learn what you and your organization can do to help adoptive and foster families I'd be honored to help your organization start the discussion. My vision is for every adoptee to reach their full potential to be whole, healed, and to have pride in their adoption story. Our challenges are layered and bringing awareness to the hidden impact of adoption, foster care, abandonment, and trauma can shift the world’s views. The good, the bad, and the ugly… let’s talk. Outside of all things business, I volunteer as the Adoptee & Survivor Team Coordinator for Miriam's Heart and as an Ambassador of NJCARE. I love all things fine and performing arts. I love to sing and dance and I enjoy voiceover work. For fun I create catchy t-shirt designs and established Joi Renee Apparel in 2013. Joi Renee Apparel served as a customer spotlight designer for ProWorld Inc with several designs (A9834D, A9444C, A9538C, A9644C...) on sale to heat press vendors. I am the brand designer for Turtle Fitness & Performance apparel and Finding Joi apparel. |
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Finding Joi: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Love, centers around one woman’s plight to connect the dots to find her birth parents after being adopted at two months old by a loving family in Plainfield, New Jersey. Thanks to the tireless efforts of the NJCARE Team, Governor Chris Christie signed the Adoptee Birthright Act (P.L. 2014, C.9), which became the law on January 1, 2017. Joi was present at the New Jersey State House to witness this historic legislation take effect, and gave her hope for a new chapter in her life. Now, adopted New Jerseyans born between 1940 - 2015 can access to their Original Birth Certificates without a court order.
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