The History of Holt International
In 1956, Harry and Bertha Holt revolutionized the definition of family when they adopted eight children in the wake of the Korean War.
They pioneered international adoption, and founded Holt International. But long before that, they were child sponsors — driven by their faith, compassion, generosity and desire to do what they could to make the world a better place.
Explore each decade of Holt’s incredible history of helping children and families:
1950s
December 16, 1954
The beginning of Holt International
Harry and Bertha Holt view a World Vision video that depicts the plight of Korean War orphans and it inspires them to provide monthly sponsorship.
May 30, 1955
Harry Holt leaves for Korea
Harry Holt leaves for Seoul, Korea, to care for children left orphaned or abandoned in the wake of the Korean War.
August 12, 1955
President Dwight Eisenhower signs the Holt Bill into law
After a lobbying effort by Bertha Holt, a bill is passed allowing Harry and Bertha Holt to adopt eight children from South Korea.
October 14, 1955
Holt children arrive in the United States
After the “Holt Bill” passes, the eight children adopted by Harry and Bertha Holt arrive in Oregon.
March 21, 1956
Harry Holt leaves for Korea to set up the Holt Adoption Program with David Kim
Feeling led by God to help more children in Korea, Harry Holt travels back to Seoul to unite children with families through international adoption.
July 23, 1957
First Holt picnic
The first Holt picnic is held at Harry and Bertha Holt’s home in Creswell, Oregon, attended by more than 500 families and children brought together through the Holt Adoption Program.
1960s
1962
Ilsan Center is built
Concerned about the children who weren’t adopted, especially those with profound medical and developmental conditions, the Holts build a long-term care facility near the village of Ilsan in South Korea.
April 28, 1964
Harry Holt passes away in Korea
After suffering a heart attack, Harry Holt passes away, leaving behind his wife and family, and the children in Korea whose lives he touched.
March 1, 1966
Bertha Holt recognized as American Mother of the Year
At the presentation, Bertha Holt sits beside Vice President Hubert Humphrey.
1970s
1972
Holt begins work in Vietnam
Holt first serves families and children in Vietnam through a USAID-funded nutrition program, later developing an international adoption program to help find permanent homes for the more than 25,000 children then living in Vietnam’s orphanages. In 1973, Holt introduces foster care for children in the country’s orphanages, providing loving, individual attention to nurture their development while they await permanent placement.
1975
Holt begins work in Thailand
In the mid-1970s, Holt establishes a partner agency in Thailand, called the Holt Sahathai Foundation (HSF), or “United Hearts Foundation.” In 1976, HSF begins providing support services to struggling families, thus enabling them to care for their children. That same year, HSF becomes the first organization to implement foster care in Thailand, providing children with a loving home while they await adoption or to rejoin their families, once stable.
April 5, 1975
Saigon falls to the North
Holt evacuates exactly 409 children from Saigon in what has now famously become known as the “Vietnam Babylift.” Holt’s flight — one of several agency-arranged “babylifts” at the end of the war — comes two days after President Gerald Ford announces that all Vietnamese children currently identified for adoption to U.S. families would be airlifted out of Vietnam.
1975
Holt begins work in the Philippines
In 1976, Holt helps establish a partner agency in the Philippines — the Kaisahang Buhay Foundation (KBF), or “Working Together Foundation,” in Manila. Through the years, KBF has grown to become a recognized leader in child welfare services, serving homeless and at-risk children from birth to 18 years of age. Like all of Holt’s partners, KBF strives to help children remain or reunite with their birth families before pursuing adoption.
October 1, 1979
Bharatiya Semaj Seva Kendra (BSSK) opens in India
Holt helps establish BSSK to provide services and residential care for homeless children in Pune, India. At BSSK, Holt adapts the model of attentive, affectionate care that Harry Holt helped establish in Korea, reducing infant mortality to almost zero.
1980s
1986
Holt begins work in Guatemala
In 1986, Holt begins caring for orphaned and vulnerable children in Guatemala through a partnership with a local child welfare agency, Asociación para la Integración Familiar (APIF). Through 2010, Holt helped more than 150 Guatemalan children join adoptive families in the U.S. and supported APIF’s efforts to reunite another 500 children with their birth families.
1989
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is drafted
In 1989, Holt representatives help draft the Convention, which states that childhood is separate from adulthood, lasts until age 18 and is a special, protected time in which children must be allowed to grow, learn, play, develop and flourish with dignity. The Convention is the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history and has helped create stronger safeguards to protect children from violence and exploitation.
November 1, 1989
Holt helps to establish the Vathsalya Charitable Trust
By helping to establish the Vathsalya Charitable Trust, Holt is able to provide services and residential care to homeless children in Bangalore, India. Today, the child welfare organizations Holt helped to establish in India continue to grow and diversify their services, and remain a significant part of Holt’s history and legacy.
1990s
1990
Holt begins work in Romania
After the fall of communism in 1989, the former Eastern Bloc country of Romania opens its doors to outsiders — including to its 650 state orphanages where more than 100,000 children are found living in horrifying conditions. In 1990, Holt is among the first organizations to come to the aid of Romania’s institutionalized children, developing a range of USAID-funded child and family welfare programs throughout the 1990s.
1992
Holt begins finding families for children from China
In 1992, Holt facilitates its first international adoption from China to the United States. In the years since, Holt has become a leading agency in finding families for children from China, particularly children with special needs and older children. To date, Holt has placed more children with special needs than any other agency. In the late 1990s, Holt also begins allying with the government of China to develop model foster care programs — providing family-like alternatives for children in institutional care. In the ensuing years, Holt replicates this model for children throughout China.
1993
Holt delegates help draft The Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption
When nations gather in the early 1990s to draft The Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, delegates representing the U.S. include Holt President Emeritus David Kim and Holt Vice President of Policy & External Affairs Susan Cox.
1999
Holt begins work in Mongolia
In 1999, Holt begins to serve homeless children in Ulaanbaatar through a partnership with the Mongolian NGO, the Naidvar Center. Holt also establishes ties with the National Children’s Sanitorium (NCS), Mongolia’s primary government care center for orphaned and abandoned children under the age of 4. Together, NCS and Holt develop the Rainbow Special Baby Care Unit to give at-risk infants and toddlers the proper nutrition, medical care and nurturing they need to recover and thrive.
1999
Nanchang baby care unit opens in China
Holt helps the Nanchang orphanage open a special baby care unit to improve the feeding and care of premature babies and babies with special needs — reducing the overall mortality rate of children entering the orphanage.
2000s
July 24, 2000
Bertha Holt passes away
Bertha Holt — affectionately known as “Grandma Holt” — passes away at age 96 at her home in Creswell, Oregon. A co-founder of Holt International, she leaves behind a legacy of love, faithfulness and tireless advocacy for orphaned and vulnerable children around the world.
2000
Holt helps develop the ILEA program in the Philippines
The Independent Living & Educational Assistance (ILEA) program empowers young adults who grow up in orphanages to achieve independence and self-reliance. While some ILEA scholars have worked toward a high school diploma and then opened their own businesses, nearly half have graduated from vocational courses or completed four-year university degrees.
2001
Holt begins work in Uganda
In 2001, Holt begins working with the indigenous NGO Action for Children (AFC) to help serve vulnerable families and children in Uganda, particularly those affected by HIV/AIDS. The partnership immediately expands AFC’s ability to reach, counsel and assist children. With the primary goal to keep children within their extended family – and off the streets or out of institutions — Holt and AFC begin developing services that empower struggling families to support their children.
2003
Holt begins work in Haiti
Holt begins our work in Haiti in 2003 — partnering with the humanitarian organization Hope for Haiti Foundation, centered at the Fontana Children’s Village north of Port-au-Prince.
2005
Holt continues work in Cambodia
Holt has intermittently served children and families in Cambodia since the late 1990s — and consistently since 2005. With international adoption to the U.S. closed since 2001, Holt concentrates efforts in Cambodia on helping children join families via in-country adoption, reuniting children with their birth families and strengthening families at risk of separation.
March 1, 2007
Holt’s Longchuan project is initiated in China
Through the Longchuan project, Holt expands services to children and families at risk due to poverty or HIV/AIDS. The project works in partnership with local schools and teachers with the goal of helping children remain with their families and continue their education.
2007
Holt begins work in Ethiopia
In 2007, Holt establishes an international adoption program in Ethiopia to help orphaned and vulnerable children join loving, permanent families. Holt also begins exploring ways to help strengthen families at risk of separation. In 2008, Holt introduces a family strengthening program to help struggling families in Ethiopia grow strong and self-reliant, and able to provide for their children.
2010s
January 12, 2010
Massive 7.0 earthquake strikes Haiti
When the quake hit, many children in care at our partnering care center Holt Fontana Village were already matched with adoptive families in the U.S. In the aftermath, Holt helps arrange for these children to travel to the United States on humanitarian parole visas.
April 14, 2011
Holt International celebrates 55 years with a conference in Washington, D.C.
Participants from around the world gather in Washington, D.C. (April 14-16) to celebrate 55 years of intercountry adoption at the International Forum, sponsored by Holt International and Adoptees for Children. The conference looks at international adoption and child welfare through the unprecedented lens of adult adoptees.
September 1, 2011
Holt takes over operation of the Peace House in China
A special medical foster home in China, the Peace House provides a nurturing care environment and medically trained caregivers to provide critical pre- and post-operative care for children receiving corrective or lifesaving surgery.
2013
Holt begins our child nutrition program
To help address nutrition and feeding issues among children in orphanage care — especially among children with special needs — Holt develops the Holt International Child Nutrition Program and begins training caregivers in best health, hygiene, nutrition and feeding practices. Today, Holt’s nutrition programs serve children in both orphanage care and family strengthening programs in countries where we work around the world.
May 1, 2014
Holt assumes management of the Sunny Ridge Family Center in Illinois
Today, Holt’s branch office in Illinois continues to provide both domestic and international adoption services to families in Illinois and has expanded its services to families in Wisconsin.
September 1, 2014
Holt joins a pilot adoption program for children with special needs in Vietnam
Holt is one of two U.S. agencies chosen to participate in a pilot adoption program for children with special needs in Vietnam. With this announcement, a 6-year moratorium on adoptions from Vietnam to the U.S. comes to an official end.
October 2015
Holt helps open the Mother and Child Health Center in Ethiopia
In a rural region of Ethiopia served only by a small clinic, Holt donors and the local community come together to build a full-service maternal-child hospital. For the first time, 250,000 people have access to advanced medical care.
October 2016
Holt begins supporting the Red Stone School for children in Mongolia
Before the Red Stone School opened, children often worked alongside their parents in the Ulaanbaatar city garbage dump, searching for food or recyclables. At the Holt sponsor- and donor-supported Red Stone School, children receive a safe, warm environment to learn, clean uniforms and nourishing daily meals. For many of these children, the meal they eat at school is the only meal they eat each day.
2017
Holt receives grants to develop family-like care alternatives for children living in institutions in Cambodia
Through research and community collaboration funded by Save the Children, USAID and GHR Foundation grants, Holt begins working to develop a model of services that keeps thousands of children out of institutions and in more nurturing, family-like care. Services include foster care, family reunification and kinship care, and in-country adoption.
January 25, 2018
David Kim passes away
David Kim passes away in Eugene, Oregon, at the age of 86. He was Holt’s first employee, hired by Harry Holt, and dedicated his life to serving children.
2018
Holt resumes work in Colombia
As the war in Colombia comes to an end, Holt reestablishes a Colombia adoption program to help find families for children in greatest need — many of them older children and sibling groups. At the same time, Holt begins working alongside local partners in Colombia to strengthen families at risk of separation and care for orphaned and vulnerable children.
April 1, 2019
Holt merges with World Association for Children and Parents (WACAP)
Holt and WACAP now operate under the name Holt International Children’s Services, and are able to help more orphaned and vulnerable children around the world by combining resources and knowledge.
May 17, 2019
Molly Holt passes away in Korea
Molly Holt, daughter of Holt founders Harry and Bertha Holt, passes away at age 83. Molly spent most of her adult life at the Ilsan Center in Korea, a nurturing, long-term care home that her parents built in the early 1960s for children and adults with special medical, developmental and physical needs. As a nurse and foster mother to the residents of Ilsan, Molly worked to ensure they received the specialized care they needed to reach their potential and live as independently as possible.
2019
Holt resumes international adoptions from Hong Kong
After many years, Holt reestablishes an international adoption program in Hong Kong to help find families for children with special needs.
2019
Holt begins finding families for children from Taiwan
The Taiwan program is Holt’s third adoption program in the China region, including Hong Kong and mainland China.
2019
Holt resumes international adoptions from Bulgaria
To help find families for children from Bulgaria, Holt resumes our partnership with Vesta, a licensed agency with more than 20 years of experience advocating for children — especially children with special needs and older children who have been waiting a long time for a family.
2020s
2020
Holt helps children and families affected by the COVID-19 pandemic
In early 2020, as COVID begins to spread in China, Holt sponsors and donors provide emergency supplies to children living in orphanages. As COVID becomes a global pandemic, Holt sponsors and donors provide everything from food, clothing and school supplies to safe shelter, counseling, medical care, cash transfers and more for over 288,400 children and families in our programs worldwide.
March 2021
Holt helps the first child in Cambodia join a family via in-country adoption
With grant funding, Holt’s social work team in Cambodia helps to develop three care alternatives for children growing up in institutional care — kinship care, foster care and for the first time, a formal, ethical system of domestic adoption.
May 17, 2021
Holt begins international adoptions from South Africa
With this announcement, Holt becomes one of three U.S. adoption agencies approved to place children from South Africa with eligible families in the U.S. As everywhere Holt has adoption programs, Holt works alongside a local partner in South Africa — Wandisa — to thoroughly explore the possibility of family reunification before pursuing adoption for a child.
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