_edited.png){kind=small}
About I FOUND ME, Inc.
I FOUND ME, Inc. is a community-driven organization dedicated to supporting adoptees and families as they navigate the complex and deeply personal journey of identity, belonging, and reconnection.
We believe that every adoptee deserves the opportunity to explore their story in a safe, understanding, and empowering environment — one that honors both their past and their potential. Our work centers on helping individuals uncover their authentic selves while strengthening the bonds that connect families and communities.
Our Purpose
At the heart of I FOUND ME is a commitment to healing and wholeness. We recognize that adoption is not a single moment, but a lifelong journey — one that involves layers of emotion, discovery, and growth. Our programs and initiatives create space for open dialogue, education, and emotional support so that adoptees, biological parents, and adoptive families can move forward together with compassion and understanding.
Our Mission
To empower and inspire adoptees, adoptive parents, biological families, and the broader community by addressing the hidden challenges of adoption and reconnection.
We provide tools, conversations, and connections that foster healing, strengthen identity, and build a supportive network where every story matters.
Our Work
Through educational forums, round table discussions, community engagement, and advocacy, I FOUND ME raises awareness about adoption and the importance of lifelong support systems. We tackle difficult but necessary topics such as the stigmas surrounding adoption, the emotional impact on youth, and the evolving landscape of open and private adoptions.
By bridging understanding between adoptees, families, and institutions, we help create pathways toward stability, love, and self-discovery.
Our Vision
To see a world where every adoptee feels empowered to embrace their story, families are equipped with the tools to nurture identity and healing, and communities celebrate adoption as a journey of connection — not secrecy or shame.
Founder's Story:
An Adoption Journey to Identity and Reconnection
Janeen Jones - Born in Austin, Texas in March of 1977, Janeen Samantha Jones entered the world through private adoption. A young military couple, grieving the loss of two full-term stillborn babies, was blessed to welcome her into their loving family of three.
During her early years, Janeen—affectionately known as JJ—was shy, talkative, and endlessly inquisitive. One morning at the breakfast table, eight-year-old Janeen looked closely at her parents and brother and suddenly asked, “Why don’t I look like any of you?” After a moment of silence and the sound of silverware dropping from her brother’s hands, her father gently responded, “Because you look like my dad, your grandfather. You’re tall and skinny just like him.” She adored her grandfather, so the explanation brought her comfort—at least for a time.
Four years later, while living in Goldsboro, North Carolina, Janeen stayed home alone while her parents attended an event at the NCO Club. Bored and curious, she searched through the family file cabinet. There she found a folder titled: “In Re: THE ADOPTION OF JANEEN SAMANTHA JONES.”
Shocked, scared, and overwhelmed, Janeen called her older brother, who was serving in the Air Force. After reading the document to him, he confirmed the truth and told her she needed to tell their parents before he did. Trembling, Janeen wrote a heartfelt apology letter asking her parents not to send her away and placed it on their dresser. She clutched the teddy bear she’d had since infancy as she heard their footsteps approaching.
Janeen cried, her mother cried, and her father reassured her: “There is no way in the world we would ever give you back. You will always be our baby.” He explained that her birth parents had been young college students who loved her but could not care for her. Her mother, hurt by how the truth came out, could only ask, “Why did you have to go into our file cabinet?” Janeen stayed silent, wrapped in her parents’ reassuring embrace.
From that moment, the questions began—identity, belonging, guilt, curiosity. She wondered whether her adoptive parents would have ever told her. She wondered whether her birth parents thought of her, whether she had siblings, and whether she would ever be accepted or rejected by the family she did not know.
It wasn’t until her mid-forties, in 2023, that Janeen finally found the courage and faith to search for her biological roots. Through Ancestry, she connected with her maternal aunt, which eventually led to reconnecting with her birth mother three months later. Those three months tested Janeen’s faith as her birth mother did not respond until receiving a deeply personal letter promising that Janeen wanted nothing but the chance to know her—at her pace—without blame.
Their first in-person reunion was breathtaking. The reconnection brought fulfillment to Janeen and emotional complexity to her birth mother, who revealed that she had named her “Nikki Nicole.” Guilt lingered for her birth mother, even though the adoption was the best choice at the time.
In the process, Janeen also learned—through an online obituary—that her biological father had passed away in 2011. The news was heartbreaking, but she believed she deserved to know the truth. From that same obituary, she discovered he was one of eleven children—and that she had two older sisters.
Scared yet determined, Janeen reached out to one of her paternal aunts on social media, only to discover that her aunt was close friends with the mother of a woman Janeen worked with—a spiritual sister to her. It felt like destiny. The video call with her aunt was filled with tears and disbelief at the uncanny family resemblance. Her aunt insisted on connecting Janeen to her sisters, feeling it was her God-given assignment as she battled stage-four ovarian cancer.
Janeen’s sisters already knew about her—their father had told them before he passed away. Only months later, the three sisters met and formed an unbreakable bond.
As for her birth mother, Janeen extended grace and created space for relationship. She met her maternal grandmother, aunts, uncle, and several cousins. Yet despite a warm beginning, communication later grew limited.
No two adoption journeys are the same. Each is deeply personal, unpredictable, and emotionally layered. Janeen’s path took her from fear to faith, from loss to discovery, from wondering to knowing.
Her journey to reconnection led her to a profound truth— “I Found Me.”
