UAC Beginnings -
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Published on: 4/6/2006
Last Visited: 12/12/2007
Lorri Kellogg hugs her first adopted daughter Jaime during a visit to Korea
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When Lorri Kellogg came home to her Miami apartment one summer evening in 1972, kicked off her shoes, poured herself a glass of wine and flicked on the television, she had no idea that within moments, her life--and the lives of thousands of other people--would begin to change dramatically.
The click of a dial on that one summer evening eventually motivated Kellogg to adopt four children, change her profession, lead campaigns against federal immigration laws and state adoption statutes and start an international adoption and relief agency for children.
At the time, Lorri Kellogg, a divorced woman in her early 30's, was a successful executive for a large real-estate firm.She had always assumed she would have children, but during her marriage she had two ectopic pregnancies, followed by tumors that required a hysterectomy.Before her marriage ended, she had wanted to adopt a child, but her husband refused.In the years following her divorce she had put her dream of being a mother on hold, and enjoyed her life as a single professional woman.She lived in a luxury high-rise apartment building overlooking Biscayne Bay and spent her spare time scuba diving, blue-water sailing, swimming with dolphins and playing tennis.She channeled her activism into volunteer work for Prisoners of War Missing in Action, which she founded in 1970 after meeting a woman whose husband was missing action in Vietnam.On weekends, she often sailed to the Bahamas with a group of friends.
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The idea of doing something for a child appealed to me." About three weeks later, Kellogg got a picture frown an orphanage in Cheon Chun, Korea, of an infant named Uhm, Myung Sook.
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"It was a tiny black-and-white wallet-size snapshot of this beautiful little baby," says Kellogg.
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For about three months, Kellogg simply sent her monthly check of $12 to pay for Myung Sook's food and clothing.But she kept looking at the photograph and thinking about the little girl, wondering about her future and what her life would be like as a girl child in Korea who'd been abandoned and given an assumed name.Kellogg went to the library and read everything she could find on Korea.She learned that with no family registry or knowledge of her father's ancestry, the infant would most likely grow up ostracized, with no promise of an education or opportunity to marry.It was then, in early 1973, that Kellogg wrote a letter asking if Myung Sook was available for adoption.
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"At the time, it seemed so simple," says Kellogg.
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More than two years before Jaime Myung Sook actually came to this country, Lorri Kellogg started looking for a house with dual zoning for home and day care.
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"She asked me, 'Why do you want to do this anyway?' " Kellogg remembers.
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Kellogg was devastated."I don't cry easily, but I cried all night long."
Never a quitter, Kellogg began her campaign to change the law the very next day.For two years, she lobbied, wrote letters and contacted the press to drum up support for a new law that would allow single people to adopt foreign-born children.
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Kellogg then took all of her documentation back to the INS office where she had become a familiar figure.When she walked in, everyone cheered."I didn't know if it was because of Jaime or because they were glad to be getting rid of me," says Kellogg, "but I was ready thrived."
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"Lorri had the perseverance and determination to overcome obstacles that would have deterred a lesser person," Representative Lehman recaps.
LONG-AWAITED ARRIVALOn April 9, 1976, Jaime Susan (Myung Sook) Kellogg--a dazed, tired, rumpled little girl--arrived at Kennedy airport in New York City, where Kellogg was waiting.
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Kellogg--who had been working for over three years to bring this child home--hadn't expected it to be easy.But she was shaken."I said to myself, what have I done to this poor child?"The Korean escort who had accompanied Jaime on the flight from Seoul to New York City stepped in, and encouraged Kellogg to take Jaime.
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Kellogg took a deep breath, picked up her exhausted, wailing daughter and carried her through the airport with everyone staring.
"She'd just come off a twenty-hour flight and a thirteen-hour time change, and she realized she was going to have to go with this stranger," says Kellogg.
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Kellogg gave her a banana and watched as Jaime took a bite and pushed the banana up against the screen to give Gene Kelly a bite.
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Then Kellogg made two bowls of rice and brought them into the living room.She sat down and waited.
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"Once she got over that initial hurdle, she began to trust me," Kellogg remembers with a smile, "and I understood that the way to my little girl's heart was through her stomach.
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Kellogg ran her day care program for just three years before starting something much larger.She is the founder and executive director of Universal Aid for Children (UAC), a nonprofit adoption and medical relief agency based in Miami.
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Kellogg has managed all this despite a tight budget, only four full-time and three part-time office staff members and a heavy dependence on volunteers to do the lion's share of the work."I promised the Man Upstairs that if I could be Jaime's mother, I'd do what I could to help other children," says Kellogg, "and I've kept that promise."
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Since 1980, Kellogg has made more than 36 trips into war-torn El Salvador, as part of her agency's work.On many of the trips, either Jaime, Tarabeth or Jillian has gone along and worked beside Kellogg, bathing and feeding orphaned children and giving them clothing and toys, crutches and wheelchairs.
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"You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who does as much as Lorri does for kids, " says Robert Fulford, adoption specialist for the Florida office of the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children, in Tallahassee, who often works on the adoption cases Kellogg's agency is involved in. "She not only has one of the strongest adoption agencies in the state, but she also heads this other UAC effort of securing help for injured children.
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Members of William Lehman's office in Washington sometimes refer to Lorri Kellogg as the "Mother Teresa of the Southern Hemisphere."
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"I wouldn't be as happy a mother as I am without Lorri Kellogg," says Adele Liskov, of Lehman's foreign affairs staff.
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Liskov adopted her daughter through UAC after beginning to handle mail from Kellogg some 11 years ago.
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"Kellogg cares so much about the children, and that makes all the difference," says Liskov.
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As for Kellogg, the thrill of helping children get the care they need and being a part of helping them find happy, loving families is a job that can't be beat."What ready touches me is the difference love can make," she says.
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The Kellogg family (above, from left) Jaime, 34 years-old, Lorri, Jillian, 32 years-old, Tarabeth, 30 years-old, and Sara, 29 years-old, not pictured; Marilena Lidia Kellogg, now age 17. (photo taken at UAC's 20th Anniversary Celebration Oct. 18, 1997).
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Lorri has five grandchildren: at right, Krystina, 2 1/2, from lower left, Mikie, now age 10, Samantha, now age 6, Tiffany, now 4 and Jovani, now, 6.
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Aside from being a proud and happy grandmother, Lorri continues her crusade to improve the lives of children through adoption and by providing medical aid and relief.
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