Thank You! You Made a Difference at The 2026 ‘Be Mine’ Gala
- Latest News
- June 2, 2026
Dear Friends,
Thank you for being part of our 8th Annual ‘Be Mine’ Gala. With almost 200 attendees in the room, we’re proud to have raised almost $800,000 in support of our mission to provide innovative solutions for Illinois foster care and adoption.
You showed up. In a world full of competing demands and worthy causes, you chose to spend your evening with us and with the children at the center of our mission. That choice matters more than you know.
Because of your generosity, we will move faster. We will reach further. We will say yes to more urgent placement calls, build better tools for matching families with waiting children, and walk alongside more foster and adoptive parents who are doing the most important work in the world.
We are profoundly grateful to our presenting matching sponsors, the Foglia Family Foundation and the Canning Foundation, whose generosity doubled the impact of every gift given that evening. And we are deeply thankful to our extraordinary Gala Committee – Jessica Canning, Kaycee Coles, and Patrick Macellaio, with the amazing support of Kate Soldan – who poured their hearts into creating an evening worthy of the mission it was meant to serve.
But most of all, we are grateful for you. Not just for what you gave. But for who you are. The warmth you brought into that room was palpable. The laughter, the conversations, the moments of honest connection over something that genuinely matters. Every child in Illinois foster care who will be placed in a safe home this year will never know your name. But your generosity will have touched their lives.
That is not a small thing. It is everything. Thank you for being one of US in Let It Be Us. We are honored to walk this road beside you and we cannot wait to see what we will do together next.
With deep gratitude,
Susan McConnell
Founder & Executive Director, Let It Be Us
About Let It Be Us
Let It Be Us is an Illinois-licensed 501(c)(3) child welfare agency dedicated to recruitment, matching, and placement within foster care and adoption across the State of Illinois. Let It Be Us manages the Illinois Adoption Listing Service and the Heart Gallery of Illinois. Through innovative programming, strategic partnerships, and proprietary matching technology, Let It Be Us works to improve permanency outcomes for children in the Illinois child welfare system. Learn more at www.letitbeus.org.
Let It Be Us is an Illinois 501(c)3 and licensed child welfare agency. The mission of Let It Be Us is to provide collaborative, innovative solutions of effective recruitment and placement within Illinois foster care and adoption. The Let It Be Us platform manages the Adoption Listing Service of Illinois and the Heart Gallery of Illinois, engines of success for Illinois foster care adoptions. The Let It Be Us vision is for all children in the Illinois child welfare system to achieve educational equity, employment equity, and overall well being through the incorporation of Let It Be Us Programming into statewide advancements in foster care and adoption recruitment and placement. For more information about Let It Be Us, visit www.letitbeus.org.
