| VAN was established following a 25-year Vietnamese adoptee reunion in July 2000. For the first time in many Vietnamese adoptees' lives, we were reunited with other Vietnamese adoptees in April 2000 at the first-ever Reunion of the First Generation of Vietnamese Adoptees, sponsored by Holt International Children's Services,
Tressler Adoption Services, and the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, and held in Baltimore, MD, USA.
Following this reunion was another event held in July 2000 in Estes Park, CO, USA. "Reunion 2000!" was the catalyst that several
adoptees used to start the Vietnamese Adoptee Network. Many of the founding members realized that the time had come for the torch to be passed to the adoptee community, and that the stewardship of the Vietnamese adoptees' history, and the direction the adoptee community would take, was now in their hands.
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