“Originally I was going to recommend a lower number, but within 30 seconds the executive committee decided ‘You know what, this is the right thing to do. Let’s increase the [adoption] benefit to $12,000, [and] let’s give them a week off to bond with that new addition,’” recalls Eric Schueneman, Barilla America’s director of compensation, benefits, and human resources information systems, of the benefits review process back in 2007.
“Part of Barilla’s culture revolves around family. We were looking at how we could expand our benefits to be more employee- and family- friendly, and this was one benefit we saw that we had a hole in.”
The Italian pasta and sauce producer’s stellar adoption benefit is barely two years old, and has already been used twice. Last year, Mike Biegger, 44, operations director at Barilla America, and his wife Colleen, 43, a stay-at-home mom, used the company’s stipend toward the adoption of a 6-year-old girl from China, thereby reducing the steep price tag of $20,000 (excluding $5,000 for travel) to $8,000 out-of-pocket.
The Bieggers, who already have three biological sons ages 10 to 14, longed for a girl and felt strongly about providing a home for an abandoned child. Originally, they had planned to adopt a healthy toddler from China. But the long wait became discouraging, and the family started to explore the option of adopting an older, special-needs child. Seeing Elizabeth’s picture online at an adoption agency’s waiting-child list struck a chord. “Sometimes you just fall in love with a little face, ” Colleen recalls of the moment she set her heart on Elizabeth. The now-7-year-old has spinal tuberculosis (Pott’s disease), which causes her upper back to be slightly curved; she also suffers from moderate hearing loss.
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Nothing prepared the five Bieggers for their first meeting with Elizabeth at the civil affairs office in Xian, China. When the little girl walked in the door, “she had a teddy bear that we had mailed and she had one of those hesitant smiles on her face, trying to be really brave,” recalls Colleen. “I bent down to say ‘hello’ and she took one look at me and started screaming. And nothing, nothing we could do would stop her.”
Disconsolate, Elizabeth wailed for two hours. “It was a grieving process for her,” says Mike. “She was leaving something familiar.”
Back at the hotel, her new brothers blew up a plastic beach ball and started tossing it to one another. Elizabeth began to watch. Slowly she stopped crying and then joined in.
Once Elizabeth felt safe in her new home in Clive, Iowa, Mike and Colleen dared to ask her what prompted her initial reaction. “You were stinky,” Elizabeth replied. The surprised parents, who had showered before they came to pick her up, were only just beginning to appreciate the depth of the cultural divide between East and West.
In April, Elizabeth underwent spinal surgery to correct the effects of Pott’s disease, and she now wears hearing aids. Less than a year after coming to America, she speaks English well and enjoys going to kindergarten. “She is a happy, super-resilient little girl,” says her proud mom.
