Empowering Hope: Place of Hope's Impact on 25,000+ Children in South Florida

In this podcast, we shine a spotlight on Place of Hope, the region's largest organization dedicated to children and families in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast. Discover how Place of Hope has touched the lives of over 25,000 children and youth across South Florida. Joining us as special guests are Gina Fazio, LCSW, ACSW, CAP, Director of Clinical Services, and Theresa Peak, Director of Villages of Hope. They will share their firsthand experiences and insights into Place of Hope's transformative programs, policies, and services. We'll explore the profound significance of hope in the lives of those they serve and how this hope can inspire all of us to create positive change within our communities. Listen in…

Host: Charles L. Bender III, Founding CEO and Board Member of Place of Hope

Title Sponsor: Crypto Capital Venture | Follow Dan Gambardello's on Twitter (@cryptorecruitr)

Looking for assistance  in south Florida? Visit VillagesOfHope.net

Link:  Visit the Place of Hope Website, PlaceOfHope.com

Connect with Place of Hope on social media: Facebook | YouTube | Instagram | LinkedIn

Email the Show: POHPodcast@PlaceOfHope.com 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hello and thank you for tuning in to Ambassadors of Hope. I'm your host, charles Bender. We're so excited that you've tuned in to hear from local South Florida leaders who are making a difference in our community and region through our charity Place of Hope. Who are we? We're the largest, most diverse children and families organization spanning Palm Beach County and the entire Treasure Coast. Our goal is to help those we serve find healing and restoration, leading to a brighter future. Since 2001, place of Hope has served over 25,000 children and youth in South Florida. Place of Hope is a faith-based, state-licensed organization providing programs and services to children, youth and families to end cycles of abuse, neglect, homelessness and human trafficking in our local communities. None of this would be possible without our Ambassadors of Hope, the people in this community and throughout South Florida who use their leadership, influence, time, talent and resources to help others. Many have inspiring stories of their own that tie them intrinsically to our mission, and we hope that their stories will challenge you to get out and make a difference where you live, work and play. So much can grow from even just one small seed of hope. Welcome to Ambassadors of Hope, our podcast that highlights the inspiring stories of local leaders who are making a positive impact in their communities.

Speaker 1: 1:31

This week, we're thrilled to bring you an episode dedicated to the transformative power of hope, featuring two remarkable guests who have been with the organization since its early days. Joining us today are Gina Fazio and Teresa Peake, two of the most dedicated members of Place of Hope, the largest and most diverse children and families organization serving Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast. As they share their insights and experiences, they will offer a behind-the-scenes look at the innovative programs, policies and services developed by Place of Hope over the years, which have transformed the lives of over 25,000 children, youth and families in South Florida. In this episode, we'll explore the importance of hope in the lives of those they serve and how it has inspired them to develop life-changing programs such as life skills training, educational support and counseling, through the support of committed staff, volunteers and our community partners. Gina and Teresa have witnessed firsthand the transformative power of hope and how it can help us all make a positive impact in our communities. So sit back, relax and get ready to be inspired by the stories of Gina Fazio and Teresa Peake and learn how hope has transformed the lives of those in need in our community.

Speaker 1: 2:50

It's hard to believe that 20-something years have gone by already. But I was present when Pastor Tom and Miss Donna of Christ Fellowship Church announced on a Wednesday night at church to the congregation and basically to the world at that point, what they were going to do to create and launch the mission of Place of Hope, and the excitement was apparent immediately, but also the realization that the hard work was about to come. And I'll never forget, as we formed the committee to start looking at how we would do, what the vision was, how we would lay out the vision that God had given specifically to Donna on taking care of the widow and the orphan and those that need us the most specifically right here in our community. I'll never forget that we immediately started to see how we were going to do things differently and how the focus became how do we care for these kids that have been in multiple placement disruptions over the years, oftentimes no fault of their own. How do we take and create a model that would be there for the large sibling groups, and how we would build out this community on Northlake and start to meet immediate needs in a big way.

Speaker 1: 4:05

Fast forward it's just so hard to believe that how we've become one of the largest in all of Florida, at what we do and how that mission has just taken in more and more age categories and groups of need, and how we run a maternity home now and an emergency shelter and so much housing for the aged out and homeless mothers with children. It's just amazing. But as God gave Donna that vision originally, I don't think any of us knew that it would grow to the degree that it has and to the impact level that it has. But it sure is a blessing, and it's been a blessing all along, to watch God provide for this mission and this ministry. But also one of the greatest things has been to see how the community has rallied behind it. And that was always the original idea we would be community based, faith based, but out in the community and bring it in the entire community to be a part of it.

Speaker 1: 4:57

And to look now, 23, 24 years later, to see how many members of our community and organizations and foundations and companies and civic groups and churches and synagogues and so forth that have gotten behind this mission, it's just absolutely amazing and so it is a blessing and I think what makes it different is that we can show the outcomes for our children. We can show the community our stories of hope and our young people come back and tell their own stories of hope, and I think, sort of the proofs in the pudding, if you will. God's at work, he's doing a tremendous thing, he's providing for it and people just want to be a part of it, and so it's different because of the outcomes. It's different because we're seeing changed hearts and changed lives and we're seeing kids shatter statistics all over the region at every age category, and especially at this time of the season when we see these kids graduating from high school and our statistics are near perfect in terms of those that are supposed to graduate are and they're doing it a lot of them with shining stars.

Speaker 1: 5:59

And so we're just grateful to this community and what God has birthed here and how we're almost 25 years in total, almost and just seeing what he's going to do for the future, as we just dedicated another campus, even this week, all right, well, we are excited.

Speaker 1: 6:19

I'm really excited that the first podcast that we are recording Ambassadors of Hope for Place of Hope has two of the greatest possible guests we could have when talking about Place of Hope and hearing tremendous stories about our kids, and so today our guests are part of our executive team at Place of Hope also for many years, and so we have with us today Gina Fazio, our director of clinical services, and Teresa Peake, our director of Villages of Hope, two of our most critical parts of what we do and the people who represent and work so hard at what they do to lead the organization every single day. So I'm going to look over at Gina first and say Gina, tell us a little bit about you and how long you've been at Place of Hope and some other things you think our listeners might want to hear.

Speaker 2: 7:13

Sure, well, I actually started at Place of Hope over 25 years ago when I heard them announce that we were going to do something like this in our community and I was super excited because I was a therapist for DCF at the time and many of the children that I saw I would go see them and then they next week I would go to visit them again and they would be removed from their home and they had disrupted and they would be at another home and then another home.

Speaker 2: 7:39

So when I heard we were opening in our community this type of facility and this type of agency, I was super excited and I wrote Charles Bender a letter and asked if I could volunteer. So I started volunteering putting this program together and just couldn't have been happier because I could see all of the barriers and all of the issues in our community with foster care. So I was the therapist for the first few years at Place of Hope. I would start seeing the children as they came in and then I transitioned to the director of clinical services almost 18 years ago.

Speaker 1: 8:13

How many organizations can say that? And you have a really tough job. Everything has titles, everybody has a title, wherever they are. But the reality is it's like you're in a big washing machine every single day and you've got so many responsibilities placed on you there's nobody better, by the way, at what you do, and you're taking on essentially all of the issues with the kids and primarily, the staff that are working with and loving our kids on a daily basis. That right, that about right the washing machine that's about right.

Speaker 2: 8:43

That's what it feels like sometimes.

Speaker 1: 8:45

Well, we're definitely going to get into more here in details. But, teresa Peake, how many years have you been with Place of Hope?

Speaker 3: 8:53

So I have been here a total of come July 20 years.

Speaker 1: 8:58

And how many can say that about an organization, right?

Speaker 3: 9:00

So tell us a little bit about your title and what you do, and so I am the director of Villages, a Whole, which is our 18 and over program. We used to could say 18 or 25, but 18 and over program. I enjoy what I do here. I actually came to Place of Hope as a relief parent. What good friend was working and said you need to come and see about what we're doing over here. And he knew my love for kids and just working with them and so I decided to come and, like he said, I loved it.

Speaker 3: 9:35

Once I came in for a tour and realized, wow, this is impacting the lives of young people. And working at Harman Schubert Now Detention Center for over 11 years, I said I wanted to impact the kids life prior to coming into a facility such as the detention center. So being able to come into Place of Hope, do a tour, it just my heart was already there. And so I remember interviewing and still going back to the detention center and so for a whole year I was there and decided I'm going back to work for Place of Hope. So I've been here ever since.

Speaker 1: 10:15

Well, I'll say that you have both been here for a very long time and it is exactly why and there are a few others in that, in that matrix as well it's exactly why we have the success that we do at Place of Hope, because God blesses Place of Hope and he uses people to do it, and consistency matters, especially in the lives of our kids, and that trickles down to all the people that work on the team and under your leadership. And so the other thing I'll say to that real quick is that we started Place of Hope as one thing and it's completely something different now and it's regional and it's big impact thousands a year helped and supported and lifted up in big ways. And so that's. You all have both been there for every single one of those things. I know we joke around every time. I say there could possibly be another program to talk about, if it's going to have the name Hope in it or not, but you guys have been there for every bit of it, and so let's dive in a little bit.

Speaker 1: 11:09

I'll just start with. You know, it's amazing to look back over the years and I've been here 24 now coming up on and you know, from the very beginning of launching with the church, with Christ's worship church and Pastor Tom and Donna, and God gave Donna the vision for Place of Hope, as you know, and Tom's role was to kind of take and run with it and try to get it launched. And you know, again, I always look back at we become something so different than from the launch. However, we would not have even launched if it wasn't for God putting that word on Donna and the church taking action and even the church outside of the two of them, just you know, taking it on and saying we're going to do this. And you know, and one of the first things we're going to talk about is what's now called neighborhood foster care or family style foster care that we do for the hard to place youth. But you know, that is where it all started, right, it was.

Speaker 1: 12:00

I remember them saying you know, we have got to do the best possible job of taking care of these young people while they're in the state system and we already know what the statistics look like, we know what their lives can look like, we know about re-abuse rates and foster care. How are we going to do something different? How is the church going to make a difference and have the ability to shatter these statistics, and that's exactly what we did. So let's get into a little bit about, maybe, some of the different programs, with obviously the best two people on the planet that could tell you about them. So, jean, I'll look to you first and talk a little bit about what our neighborhood foster care is, maybe how it's different from some of the other traditional foster care models and why it's such, why is there such a need and where we do that at Sure, it's actually one of the original reasons I wanted to come to Place of Hope, because when I was a therapist in the community, I would go out to different homes and that's what I said.

Speaker 2: 12:50

So many children were disrupting from their homes and when we opened well, we have campuses, which I think is the most unique thing about Place of Hope is we have campuses and all of our families are in the same community. But what that means is when children, our kids, have a lot of I don't want to say issues, but a lot of wounds. They've had a lot of trauma, they've been through a lot, and so, because they've been through a lot, the way that manifests itself. It comes out in behavior sometimes and struggles and different things, and it's not always easy, and many families do it, and many families do a great job of it. They're in the community, they take kids into their home, but when you have a lot of kids, it is sometimes difficult.

Speaker 2: 13:33

My husband and I were foster parents for six years and it was not easy.

Speaker 2: 13:37

It was not easy at all, and I can see why people aren't able to do it for a long period of time or only able to take one or two children and so I think with our family, file stairs, homes, being able to have 24 hour on call support, being able to have neighbors with, are all in the same situation.

Speaker 2: 13:52

So we can all help each other, call on one another, we can help each other just pour into their lives so they have a whole community of people.

Speaker 2: 14:00

So not only when they come in do we give them, obviously, a place to stay and we make sure that they have food and clothing and shelter, but then we really get to wrap around them and they can be paired with a tutor and a mentor and a therapist and a counselor, and we have a church next door and we get to take care of all of their needs in a community and so when they do have struggles or they act out, they can lean on one another as part of the community to move forward and help support each other. And I think that's why we have such the least amount of disruptions where kids. Kids get disrupted a lot, so they have what that means. Their behavior was very difficult and they had to move from a home and we don't have a lot of disruptions because of the support that we are able to provide them and I think that's what makes us truly unique is the support surrounding us.

Speaker 1: 14:47

Yeah, isn't that interesting too that you say that and at the same time, we're taking in the harder to place kids that's actually almost a technical term, right, hard to place by the federal government. I mean, we're taking the kids that have bounced out of multiple foster homes, correct?

Speaker 2: 15:03

we're taking a lot of those children that are not being accepted to other homes, and a lot of people are scared to take teenagers. I mean To be honest, some people don't want their own teenagers in their home.

Speaker 2: 15:14

They don't want somebody else's, they don't want somebody else's with issues and so having teens, and then also we're able to take a lot of large sibling groups and keep them together. So one of the main things a lot of siblings get separated when they come into care, because a lot of people don't always have the ability to take two kids, three kids, four kids, and so not only are children traumatized by it being removed from their home, so they've been traumatized by abuse, they've been traumatized by neglect. Now they're being removed from their home and now they have to be separated from a sibling. So, being able to take our sibling groups and the majority of our children on campus or campus are in a sibling group right now so that's an amazing thing and a big thing that makes us unique in the campus style is being able to take and keep our siblings together.

Speaker 1: 15:56

And I think the antithesis, which is proven if you look at the stats. A lot of people you know look at the stats of kids who, for instance, age out of foster care and you know what happened to them and a lot of times it's not great. The results are not great Because they are, but if you look back you know those are two of the big things that get measured when the siblings actually able to stay together right, I mean, even the AMA says that they should be able to, if possible, be together, because the traumas that even come with removal already are enough. And then you get separated from siblings. And then you look at the fact that we've taken in kids and you know we don't need to even make these kinds of things up, but we've had kids that have been in nine and 10 foster homes. We've had kids that have been in 40 foster homes before they've gotten to us.

Speaker 1: 16:34

And so to see those kinds of results that we talk about with those, you know, knowing what that in the foster care side of what Place of Hope does, neighborhood foster care, that's even that much more amazing.

Speaker 1: 16:46

So glory to God for that and just so grateful for the model of our cottage parents and the consistency and all the little things that we even sometimes forget to talk about, like family vacations in the summer and after school activities. I just took a picture with one of our kids today that's graduating and he just turned 18 over the weekend and he's staying with us. He's just an amazing young man and his life's been transformed with us in so many different ways. But you know, it's really because what you all do and you support our foster families to do what they do and simply not rocket science, right, but just creating a home like face filled environment where they can thrive, and that's exactly what's happening. So maybe throw a story or something at me that are us and our listeners about. You know how we bring that hope and how that gets ushered in in that setting.

Speaker 2: 17:35

Well, that particular child that you're talking about, I actually remember seeing his profile and I actually I didn't accept him when I first saw it because I didn't think we could meet his needs and I actually thought he would need a higher level of care because, to be very honest, he didn't look so good on paper.

Speaker 2: 17:49

He had all these diagnoses, he was on four different type of medications, he had a DJJ background or, if you don't know, juvenile justice, and he had an assault charge on him and I thought, okay, I think he might need something more restrictive than what we can provide. They called me and just begged me to give him a chance and so, of course, I said okay and he has been with us for almost four years. This child is no longer on medication, he's graduating, he just got bright futures, he's got straight A's and he's doing. He has a job. He's had a job for almost two years and he's doing so well. His foster parents actually want to keep him a little bit longer to help with the transition into independent living and it's just an amazing transformation. He doesn't even look like the same child I forget when he first came in, because he lost maybe 50, 60 pounds. He's been playing sports, and just doing so well, you don't even recognize him as that same child anymore.

Speaker 1: 18:48

Yeah, and I was just in an event with him and just watching him look people in the eye and shake their hands. He's dressed up with a tie on and just a different person and we know that that's the power of transformation and God just helping like he does with all of us. But just to see that happen in this setting is just so rewarding. T, I'm not letting you off the hook here. You got to give us a little bit about, maybe when you were, relief parenting and what you recall about this side of, even though you're running something almost completely different. But you also get a lot of our kids. If they're not adopted, they don't go home through permanency that way they end up in your program that you run at villages.

Speaker 3: 19:25

Absolutely. I just think it's a lot of things that Gina was definitely talking about and having the opportunity of actually working into the home itself and seeing the kids transition from being whether they're 15 and then now turning 18 and see that what that transition looks like. I think prior to leaving one of the campuses under 18 and now being able to transition into a facility such as Place of Hope now villages of Hope at the first, I could really say seeing our first young lady transition. Of course she didn't go into Place of Hope at the first because we didn't have villages of Hope at the time and to just see her transition, yes, she knew she had the love of all of the staff from villages I'm sorry, from Place of Hope. However, when we were able to actually have our own villages of Hope, she was able to come and still feel the same love. But to be able to put a young adult that's been getting all of the love and going through the trauma that they've actually went through to say, okay, you're going to be out on your own. She wasn't ready and so we were able to see that and say you know what? We have to do something different. And, charles, you might remember, you were like, huh, we got to do something better than this. You got to be able to have our own, where we could just kind of continue to give them that love and support right here together, and so we were able to do that.

Speaker 3: 20:54

Maybe a year or two after our young lady first aged out, we were able to now have a village as a hope of our own to say you know what we want you to not only transition from Place of Hope, but now you're going into Village of Hope, and with that, we've been able to see a lot of our young adults be impacted by mentors, tutors, getting accountability. You know they still need the accountability 18, but still want accountability. Some don't, of course, but some do, and they still know that I have not only a helping hand up but a helping hand out, and so I just think to see an 18 year old depending on where that trauma affected them at, they're stuck, they might be 18 and age. However, when we see them in action, you want to know that they might be 15, because that's where the trauma took place at. The great part about Village of Hope, though, we're able to meet them where they are, you know, and get them to where they need to go.

Speaker 1: 21:53

Bridge to success. I think that's one of my favorite things about, and one of the things I'm most grateful for about Place of Hope, our board of directors and how God blesses us to be able to go do the next thing. Because what if we couldn't? Or what if we didn't or couldn't have created Place of Hope on our own? It would be a completely different landscape. Imagine being one of those young people who is, you know, now finding some consistency, like the young man that we were just talking about four years with us, and then, all of a sudden, he's faced with now where do I go? At 18, I'm going to literally almost fall off the cliff, because everybody, everybody needs a smoother transition and a bridge to get to that next level. And that's one of my favorite things about our board and the mission and all the people who sow in to support Place of Hope over these years is that they're not just okay with it, they're excited about the next thing. They're right behind and we find the people to step up the volunteers, the tutors, the mentors, the funders, all of it. And, by the way, I also want to say we could probably sit here for hours. I know for a fact we could, and we're probably going to, like kick ourselves after to say, why don't we talk about that story or this story? Because there are so many and, for those that are listening, they want to look at PlaceHopecom and see our stories of hope. That's a great place to look, because those are young people that have come back and told their stories willingly about how that they were impacted here, and there's probably a thousand more of those right, and so that's just such a blessing.

Speaker 1: 23:13

One of the things that also presented itself after years of operating and trying to do our best at what we do is that we were finding and we were getting referrals. We were getting calls from the school district, from the child welfare system, from the judges, from other places about pregnant teenagers who had nowhere to go, and so, as a result of having this kind of environment where we felt we could go to our board and say, hey, we've got to do something about this, let's pray about it, let's see what we need to do to structure it, let's find out who would be interested in helping us do it financially, and once those hurdles were by us, okay, jeannie, now you got to put a program together, and T you've always been a big part of helping with that program as well. And so let's talk to you a little bit about our maternity care, our Joann's College, which. What exactly does it do? How does it interrelate with the child welfare system and otherwise, and even human trafficking survivors? Let's talk about that a little bit.

Speaker 2: 24:05

Well, at the time, there was only one bed in Palm Beach County for a girl who found themselves pregnant in foster care, and it was always full. It was always full. So if there was a child who found themselves pregnant in foster care, they had to leave the county, which meant they had to leave their school, leave anybody they ever knew that was close to, and they had to go either to Tampa or North Florida or Tallahassee or out of the state. So when we opened Joann's and we opened a six bed maternity home, what a blessing for these kids. So we have the same model, house parent model.

Speaker 2: 24:37

We also, though, have a lot of extra support because there are teenagers and they don't have families. So imagine yourself you're in foster care, you're a teenager and now you have found yourself pregnant. So in that program we have a full time family support worker, a full time case coordinator, we have parents and staff that love on them, but really, our goal in there is the same thing we want to love them, we put them in, they go to school, we have parents in classes, independent living classes, we give them education, and I mean talk about transformations. I remember one girl again. I actually didn't accept her at first because she had, like you were saying, 47 placements from age 14 to 16.

Speaker 1: 25:18

Wait, say that one more time, just in case somebody didn't hear that.

Speaker 2: 25:21

She had 47 placements from age 14 to 16. So I looked at her paperwork and it literally said disruption, disruption, runaway, disruption, disruption. So I was like I don't think we can meet her needs, I don't think we can take care of her. So the dependencies case manager calls me and says can you just interview her? Will you just give her a chance? So I talked to her and I said tell me why you want to come here and what would be different from 47 other placements. And she said to me well, pregnancy changes a lot. Please give me a chance. Okay, well, now I have to take her because, like, you can't say no to that. So we took her in and I will never forget. Like two weeks later she stood up from the table and she said this place is a gold mine. This place is a gold mine. And she also said how come no one's ever told me about God before? Why didn't anyone ever tell me?

Speaker 2: 26:14

And it was such an interesting transition to watch because she had been in a lot of other places. So, to her being in this place, she knew the difference. And I always say that, like if we didn't make a huge difference in a child's life or our place didn't feel different. We did something wrong. So that's always my goal is for our kids to feel loved and safe and feel like they did something. This child actually ended up. She graduated from high school, she got her degree, she had her baby, she got a job. She even got a. She got promoted because she had her jobs along for a manager. She got baptized. She just she dedicated her baby at church, at Christ Fellowship and just talk about it, and stayed with us for over two years before transitioning out. And it was. It was quite something to watch. It was such a blessing to be a part of watching that transition.

Speaker 1: 27:02

It's amazing because we, you know, for a lot of reasons we're not confidentially out at such a. We can't always tell the four part of the story of like the details where a lot of our young people have come from. But thankfully we can still tell the story. But I think it's hard even for a lot of listeners to understand how dire the situations are for some of our young people when they get here.

Speaker 1: 27:21

I've always said like, if you know, if you read the Palm Beach post and it's flattered on the front page or some other big newspaper in Florida, like in Miami or wherever there's a good chance, a lot of those kids are placed with place.

Speaker 1: 27:30

So you get a good idea of what our kids have been through.

Speaker 1: 27:33

And there's just so much criminal activity surrounding them, there's so much pornography, there's so much just dysfunction as a whole in some of these home environments that they're coming from and you can imagine then it's like starting at zero and then you then you can then get a young lady who might be 12. She might be 14 and she's pregnant and a lot of times her parents have just kind of almost disowned them and just said whether they're in the system or not. And now what we're saying is it's kind of like villages too, and in ways there's a villages of hope sort of program aspect to our Joanne's Cottage, maternial, because we always say to them, or if we say to each other like hey, you're not only going to have to figure out a way to bridge successfully for yourself and become an adult right away, but you're also now responsible for someone else, and that you know it's a blessing, but it's also a really difficult thing to make happen. Any input on that one there T, because you've been a big part of it over the years.

Speaker 3: 28:25

I mean it goes along with what Gina was saying even when you start looking at their background and I always like to say this, and I say it all the time, that we, when we get calls we get various calls we don't discriminate. And so I like to say that because we don't. And so if we looked at a background, of course we might say no, you're not coming, or you just not a fit for the program. But we try to give as many people as possible, or young adults as possible, maybe a single mom, maybe those that are coming from the maternity home. We knew what their background was, but because of the love, the support that they're getting, they can transition from the maternity home and come over to the villages and receive the same love that they're getting. So it's not like a break in what they've already received.

Speaker 1: 29:15

I love that too, because maybe people don't realize that, wow, you could be in the maternity home one day at various ages, and then all of a sudden, you've done the program, you've learned how to parent, you're doing a great job and it's time to move to the next level.

Speaker 1: 29:29

Well, we have that next level at Place of Hope and that is Villages of Hope.

Speaker 1: 29:32

But it's also a very specific part of it and we're probably going to talk about that a little bit here soon too.

Speaker 1: 29:37

But, like with our mommy and me cottages, just knowing, like again what we said about that young kid that aged out, had all this trauma and now he's worried, or she's worried again about where am I going now when I'm 18? But they don't have to worry like that at Place of Hope because, again, God's allowed us and our support bases allowed us and our borders allowed us to kind of touch all those different areas where we had this seamless continuum of care. The other thing I love about this maternity home and Joanne's cottage and what we do over there and Villages of Hope is that we're teaching the next generation to not repeat so. We're teaching them how to parent because we don't want them to lose their children to the foster care system. There's no upside whatsoever, whether it's short term, long term, none of it. We want to teach them how to do a great job to where they have success in their lives and their kids have success as well.

Speaker 2: 30:24

I think one of the other things that's really important to note and people probably don't understand this unless they have lived it the level of anxiety that our kids have when they have been homeless or they don't know what's going to happen next or where they're going to go, or where they're going to get their next meal or how they're going to provide that stays with them for so long so to be able to transition to I'm safe, I have food, and I know it's not something most of us think about on a daily basis, but we take in a lot of homeless kids. So when we take them in and we find they're hoarding food in their rooms or they're eating such a large amount of food at first they don't actually know where their next meal is coming from. That's the experience that they've had, so it takes a long time for them to get used to. Ok, I actually have a meal, I'm going to have another meal Now, I'm pregnant or I'm going to have a baby on top of it. So when we start with them, we start early when they first get there, showing them villages of hope.

Speaker 2: 31:22

For most of them that don't, and right now our maternity home is full. We have six girls in there and none of them actually have families that they could return to. So we start with showing them villages of hope. Look, this is what you can look forward to. It takes that anxiety away.

Speaker 2: 31:38

So when you graduate, we want you to graduate from high school, we want you to go to the next thing, like a trade college. We want to lay all that out for you and this is where you can live and this is what your home will be, and your baby can come with you. And again, we don't want to repeat the cycle. So we're constantly with classes, with teaching. But it also takes when you take that anxiety away which, again, most of us don't have, so we wouldn't understand it they're not actually able to get to the next level of thinking about what they want to do, having your basic needs not being met or knowing where you're going to go or next meal. So when we take that away, then they're really able to focus on OK, that part of my life is taking care of. Now I can do the next thing.

Speaker 1: 32:21

Right, absolutely, because I mean, think about it just so the kids that come into foster care. We've seen so many cases of kids hoarding food, because they come in and they realize, wow, this is awesome, we're eating dinner as a family and I've got breakfast, lunch, dinner snacks, but not knowing that tomorrow's going to look the same way and they don't know where they might be tomorrow because they've seen otherwise. And so the consistency, which is one of the things we started talking about, is so key and so critical to showing them not just telling them that they're going to be successful, but showing them by having a beautiful place to live, being surrounded by great people, having the consistency of simple things, like you said, we don't even think about, like meals and clothing to wear to school and all those things, and someone to work with you to make sure you're getting the best grades you possibly can, because that's where your part of where your future is tied. You know, one of the things I forgot to even talk about is that we've been blessed with over the years, too is that our seven stars, which at one point was an emergency shelter and is now just a very longer term home for a lot of really hard to place boys. Let's talk a little bit about that because it exists on our packs and campus along with the neighborhood foster homes, but it's a little bit of a different thing A lot of people don't even realize.

Speaker 1: 33:29

You know we have so many long-term supporters, which is another blessing to play, so our donors stay with us for years and because we can prove to them what we're doing with their money and the outcomes and so forth. But still a lot of those people don't even know what's seven stars. What is that? And maybe talk a little bit about why that's different, who that population is. And one of the things I don't want to forget is that throughout all of our different programs and locations you know we're serving anywhere, I think, and you can talk to this, speak to this Gina about, and you can too, teresa about how many of these young people have been trafficked. You know whether that's sex trafficking or labor trafficking, and because we had this wide base of programs and supports, we're able to serve, I think, daily now anywhere between eight to 12 of them in these various programs. So maybe wind that in a little discussion quickly about what is seven stars and why we need to have that.

Speaker 2: 34:21

So seven stars did start as an emergency shelter for boys because all of them at the time had closed in the county and they came to us and said we need you to open a shelter. And so we were like, okay, we were gonna open a group home. And we ended up opening an emergency shelter. Emergency shelter's supposed to be 30 days. What happened was our kids started to stabilize and stay so much longer that we actually changed it to a group home where they could stay long-term. It's recently changed again into an at-risk group home for trafficking. Like you were talking about trafficking. It's such a. You know Florida ranks third in the nation. We're actually right now serving in different in all of our different programs across the board, seven victims of human trafficking in different programs and that's a whole nother ballgame that we have to wrap around them and provide different services for them. But with seven stars it did turn into an eight bed group home and it does run a little bit different because the boys that we take are definitely harder to place. They may have DJJ, they all have had multiple placements and I know this is gonna sound terrible, but no one else has wanted to take them in, so they have not been able to be placed anywhere. But what has happened is a lot of our boys have come and they've been able to because we've had the same staff Some of our staff have been there for over 10, 15 years and the consistency with the staff and they're so good, so they've done so well and they've stabilized.

Speaker 2: 35:37

We could actually move them into a family foster home, but they don't want to. They wanna stay at seven stars. They want to continue because they've grown to love the staff and they feel like I'm safe here. I'm not gonna be able to go home, I'm not gonna be able to. I might not get adopted, so I might as well just stay because here there's structure, I'm loved, I'm taken care of, and they do have. Some of them have backgrounds and are more difficult to place, like I said. So we've really wrapped around them too and done the same thing. You go to school, you have a job, you go to tutoring, you go to mentoring, you have a therapist. But a lot of them have been playing sports and we've just like in the community, some play football for their high school and soccer and some we've had this amazing athletes that have turned out or someone did the band and was great at it, and they've been able to actually stabilize at seven stars and they've stayed there longer than they have any other placement that they've been.

Speaker 1: 36:30

That's such an amazing testimony to the staff down there to being able to do all those other things while you're in this sort of holding pattern. That's the essence of the word shelter Short term. It's not meant to be long term, but yet we've been able to stabilize these boys as a team in so many instances to where they haven't had to and maybe they can't on paper, as you always say, some of these kids look like they're really tough and they're gonna be tough in the house, and so a lot of places, other places and families won't take them in and so they end up. Although you never want any young person in foster care for a long period of time, right, but we know the reality is, even though that's the case, a lot of them there is no, there are no options. So to be able to put them in such an environment with staff, do what they do and have them engaged in the community and stabilize and with a future, is absolutely amazing.

Speaker 2: 37:18

We took a boy the other day there and I did his interview and he was homeless and he was actually living with his mom in a hotel. He had not been to school because he worked at a local fast food to pay for the hotel and then his mom abandoned him and left him in the hotel. He was a teenager and so he kept working and tried to eat at work all the fast food that he could and tried to make enough money to pay for the hotel, but he couldn't. So he did get arrested for stealing and he was very embarrassed to tell me that, but he was stealing food because he was hungry and most of us can't.

Speaker 2: 37:51

Most of us could look at a paper and see DJ J. They got arrested. He was hungry so he stole food. He called the police himself and asked to be taken into foster care, and so now we've been able to get him back in school. He said I wanna get a job. He's been going to our gym and working out with our fitness center. He's already lost 19 pounds because eating all fast food and junk and gained some weight and he's just, he's like, so excited and again, he's one of those kids who didn't look good on paper, however. Great kid so happy to be able to take him and he's going to be moving to our villages of hope this month.

Speaker 1: 38:26

That's awesome. To the transition I was gonna say T you mentioned earlier DJ J in that term was another juvenile justice and you have a big background in that and you can speak to the model of like kind of who were taken in there at seven stars and how that makes a big difference because, boy, it takes a heck of a staff down there to.

Speaker 3: 38:45

Absolutely, and I think why Gina was talking. It just really shows who, villages, what place of hope as a whole organization, what we do. And just to why she was talking, I was thinking of a young man who's actually graduating. But then the next week and he called me prior to coming here and said where are you? I have your ticket for my graduation. And he too came through the seven star shelter. But to know that he's graduating, and not only graduating but already looking at colleges, you know.

Speaker 3: 39:17

And so I'm really excited to say that it shows the longevity of the staff that's there, that shows the love that they put into those young men, even though they might have a wrap sheet that just won't, it don't match up with that individual.

Speaker 3: 39:35

But because of the love and because of all of the things that we put into all of our residents that come into our care, they feel it and they know that they're getting that love. And so, like you said earlier, coming in from the DJJ background, the Department of Juvenile Justice background, you just see a lot that you possibly have to look with a different lens, and not only from our lens but from God's lens. And when we look from God's lens you're like, wow, this paperwork says one thing, but if we're looking through the lens of God, it actually says I have to see this kid as a different person, and so that's why we were able to see these young men become successful. And so it's a great thing when we can look at the lives that we're touching on a daily basis and again, just to see this young man go from seven star shelters to now graduating and looking to be a chef one day. We're really excited about what we do.

Speaker 1: 40:32

Redemption is real, right, absolutely, and we're just so grateful to have all these different pieces creating this seamless continuum like we've talked about over the years, because they're just such tremendous needs. We want to give a special thanks and shout out to our presenting sponsor, crypto Capital Venture. Crypto Capital Venture acts as both a startup recruiting firm as well as one of the largest crypto communities in the cryptocurrency space, offering trailblazing content for over five years. If you're interested in crypto, you can join over 300,000 subscribers on their YouTube channel for the latest on crypto, just go to YouTube and search Crypto Capital Venture and make sure to subscribe. Thanks so much, dan and our friends at Crypto Capital Venture.

Speaker 1: 41:20

One of the things I want to jump into now is our aging out of foster care, otherwise homeless use, which, even that, has grown exponentially. It's probably one of our biggest areas of growth. A lot of people don't know that Place of Hope is leading this region in the development of new, affordable, transitional housing. I know we say it's important to say both those words, because it's not just affordable and it's not just transitional. It's affordable, transitional, it's a hand up program. The idea is we're going to provide high quality housing with dignity, with a lot of requirements and personal responsibility and we always say we're going to be in your business and so that's part of that bridge that makes it even possible for whether they were with us and they aged out of care because nobody's really ready to just typically just make it, especially if you have trauma in your past at 18.

Speaker 1: 42:07

But then there's these other people that we've over time realized we needed to help these single moms with kids that are dependent children, whether there's domestic violence or drug abuse in the background, whatever it is. All of a sudden they're trying to make it on one limited income and now we see a lot of those kids get removed, thrown in the foster care system. Mom can spiral after that and that's not the answer. And the answer is quality housing with programs and wraparounds, and so let's talk a little bit about that program, village of Hope, and the who that we get to serve there.

Speaker 3: 42:39

Absolutely so. The who are the ones that we were previously talking about that might find themselves homeless or being a couch potato with some friends, or they just didn't have what the average person would have with the parents in the home, and so they might have the grandparents that are raising them and they still need some assistance. And so those are the who's that we actually serve, those young adults that just need a little bit more support, and so we've been able to actually serve. We started off again. It's been over 20 years, so we started off just serving the 18 to 25 year old population, and so with that, our first priority were those that were aging out of foster care. And then we begin to open it up for a mother with maybe one child, and then possibly two, depending on space and availability at the time, and then also we open it up again to those that were in the community that found themselves 18 or a little older but they needed more assistance, and so with that we were able to open it up. And so I think that's why I love Village as a Hope so much, because we're able to give the wraparound services to those that say, hey, I am a little older but I still need help. I still need the support, and one of the things is I think we kind of learned this early on is that you always get someone when you come in, bring a young adult in to do an interview.

Speaker 3: 44:04

They're asking about the rules, and so we learned early on that it's not rules. We do have expectations, as a wonderful program that we are, and so we always tell them yeah, there are expectations. You're expected to go to work. You're expected to. If you have not obtained your high school diploma, we want to come around you to make sure that if you can get your diploma, we want to help you get your GED. We want to make sure that if you want to do a trade or do post-secondary education, we want to be able to help you out with that as much as possible so they're able to get these services. So it's not just giving them the affordable housing, but want to make sure that they're transitioning into adulthood as much as possible with all the support that they can possibly need and have readily accessible.

Speaker 1: 44:52

Yeah, I mean it's amazing. It compounded by the fact that post-COVID and we saw all these folks move into the great state of Florida paradise. And what did that do? That jacked the fair market rent standards through the roof. It made less places available, forget about ownership.

Speaker 1: 45:09

In some ways, for some of the young people, this is something that affects all of middle class and under that right. So how much more for our young people that are aging out and they need a place to live. They don't want to have to leave here. They've got family, they've got ties, they've got play, soap, friendships, they've got all that. And they want to live here in paradise too.

Speaker 1: 45:27

And it's gotten harder and harder, compounded by the fact that again, with the traumas in their backgrounds and the placement disruptions, et cetera, a lot of them aren't ready to just make it at 18. Nor should we expect them to. So what a blessing that we've had people step up to now. We have affordable transitional housing for these populations in Boca, we'll soon have some in West Palm, we're building some right now in Stewart and we have some just down the street from here in Lake Park Gardens. I mean, it's amazing. We're the largest provider of that by far now, and a lot more coming as a result of our campaign in this generous community. Gina, what do you want to say about that?

Speaker 2: 46:01

real quick, Well, I think it's really important and I think about it from a different perspective now because I have an 18-year-old and I think what my 18-year-old, who doesn't have trauma, who grew up with parents, he would not be ready to turn 18 one day and be on his own the next day, and he had none of that. And I think about that a lot because I'm so thankful to villages. So when we have teenagers in the family foster homes and we realize they're not going to get adopted and they're not going to go home, we start really talking about education, getting your degree, getting your diploma, doing something different. And if any of you have seen statistics for kids who age out of foster care, they're not good. The majority don't graduate high school and only 2% nationwide go to college. We are killing our statistics.

Speaker 2: 46:44

So we have had every senior is graduating the last, I don't know the last few years, five, six years. Every senior that we've had has graduated from high school, which doesn't sound like a super big deal If you go. Yeah, my kid's graduating high school. That's the expectation, but for our kids it's a huge deal Because they were never. Some of them. It's the first person in their family to have graduated high school. It's the first time that they had a job and then all of these things, so it actually is a really big deal and we've got kids go into college and kids go and do trade schools and it's just been an amazing transformation for them that they would not have necessarily had, nor was it expected, like they didn't ever even think that they would graduate from high school. That wasn't even on their radar.

Speaker 1: 47:28

And I just think too you think of these moms with these children and for us it's yeah, it's an affordable transitional housing program. It's also a child abuse prevention model. It's a way to keep these kids out of the system, because we can keep the state and others that are responsible for making sure the welfare of a child. But if we can get them into stable housing and, by the way, everybody knows they pay a program for you they have to have skin in the game. They've got a lot of accountability.

Speaker 1: 47:53

But what we're doing is just the structural part of this is we're providing this model of safe, stable, dignity-filled, beautiful, quite honestly housing that we've been able to provide for them. But, as you know, we're checking on how they're taking care of it. We're training them on how to clean and how to keep up and why that's important and how people have made this available for them, and it's, at a way, reduced rent level that that's what makes it even possible for them to actually go and focus on the things that will get them to a living wage and better, because we see the moms or even the young people that come in and all of a sudden they're working two and three minimum wage jobs just to make ends meet. Well, where are you going to find time for school? And so that is part of our requirement. Right, we have the educational requirements, but then the whole idea is to get them to that next level so that they can successfully move on and make room for the next young person.

Speaker 3: 48:42

Absolutely, you were going to say something I think it's good to know too for all our listeners that we don't just give. We want to make sure that they understand that all of our residents, when they come in, they are required, they have requirements that they have to do and, like you said, charles, it's one of those things that they know, that these things are here for you. But we want you to understand that we are not. I might not, I probably shouldn't say it, but I do tell them the things that you're paying us. We want you to just learn the ethics of how to pay, what a program fee would look like or, when you go out, when you have to pay rent, what that would really look like. So we want to come alongside them to let them know.

Speaker 3: 49:31

We've had young people that actually come into the program that do not know how to pay their rent or program fee. They don't know what that looks like A budget, all of it Exactly and so we have to do budgeting with them. We have to do those certain life skill things with them to bring them to a place where they feel confident enough to know that when I leave Village as a Hope, I'm able to actually live on my own, I'm able to pay my bills. I'm able. So, and then I like to think which is really good that we have young people that actually come in, might be walking, but they leave with their own car because they save their money, they put their money, they followed the budget that they were actually put on and they said you know what I want? A car. And so they work towards it. They meet their goals. They come in with short term and long term goals that we're coming alongside them To make sure that they actually meet the goals while they're there, and so I think it's important that we all come around them, and it really does take a village.

Speaker 1: 50:29

And one of my favorite things, too, is our leadership and career days, which ties into our independent living, skills trainings and so forth. But it's the exposure to what's out there, to what they can become if they decide to. And we have these volunteers, business leaders that come in. Some are entrepreneurs, some are running construction companies, some are plumbers, some are bankers, some are lawyers, whatever it is. They come in and the kids get to see and meet these people organically and they're there, they're not paid to be there, they're all volunteers and we've just seen some amazing things Because we're broadening the horizons. And one of the things we're going to talk about in a minute is our education and enrichment overlay and what that really means to place open, how, in my mind, everything we do at Place of Open Village kind of falls under the umbrella of, in some ways, education and enrichment, because that's like the overlay of all the good stuff. It's all the things that we do by bringing in the community to feed into their lives.

Speaker 1: 51:19

One of the things that always drove me nuts before Place of Open some of the places I worked and did social services and so forth was just this idea that you say to a kid you can become anything you want Johnny or Alice, you can be. But if you don't show them, what do you got? So it's so easy. Words are free, so it's so easy to do that, but the reality is we show them, we give them the opportunities with the accountability and that hand up, and then we see them take advantage of it. It's awesome Gita talk a little bit real quick about human trafficking survivors. Like, how does that even happen? People think, well, I mean, we know we have a pretty porous border and so forth and people are coming and there's trafficking that's going on at probably the most alarming rates ever in this nation. But we don't even see mainly that what we see is more of a domestic scenario that's taking place in these young girls and boys' lives.

Speaker 2: 52:08

We see both. We definitely see both and it's been, I think. We've always served trafficking victims. We just never caught it trafficking, and we've had it for the entire time. But then when trafficking kind of the word became on the scene and we became more aware, I would say we realized the rate that it was going.

Speaker 2: 52:26

And now, like I said before, we have seven kiddos that we take care of that have been victims of human trafficking, whether it be sex trafficking or labor trafficking, and it's really what they have been through. I mean, I've been a therapist and a clinician for almost 25 years. Reading what I read in their shelter orders, you almost can't read it. It's that difficult to read, it's that difficult to even look at and imagine what they've lived through. So we really wrap around them in a different way. We don't label them in any way so that other people know, oh, this child has been through this, but we definitely provide them a trauma therapist, a certain mentor, a different type of case management and wrap around them in a different way Because their trauma not that one trauma is more significant than another, but the way they have lived and what they have been through it's just been a lot different and pretty horrific circumstances.

Speaker 1: 53:24

I think I like what you said, that we've always been serving, for these 20-something years, these human trafficking survivors. But until somebody at some level somewhere started calling it, that nobody really realized it right. But we just knew that there was rape, that there was all kinds of really, really bad scenarios for our kids and they would come into our care. Of course we would try to deal with all the therapeutic needs that they have and have, but it was always different because it was so traumatic at such a high level. But now you look now and you read the same sort of case file about a kid and then it's codified differently but it's always existed, it's always been out there.

Speaker 2: 53:58

And it is different. Some definitely have come from another, have been trafficked from another country, and they're here and, to be honest with you, they don't want to be here. They didn't like the way they got over here. They didn't ask to come here, they want to go back home. Some of our kiddos don't speak English, so they're not only in a different country, they're having to learn a different language, they're having to go to school where they weren't in school before. And then some are domestic.

Speaker 2: 54:20

I mean, I remember getting a girl. She was 12 years old and she came in and she had specifically asked I need to see the director. So she came in to see me and she said look, lady, you have a very nice place here, but I don't belong here. She said I know that paper says I'm 12, but I'm not 12. I have a husband, who's 37, who pays the bills in the house and I need to get home. And I remember looking at her and I said to her you do belong here and we're happy to have you here. And she said I don't belong here, lady. I'm telling you I'm not 12. And I said well, you are 12 and I'm sorry that you haven't been treated like a 12 year old and I'm sorry that you missed your childhood and I'm sorry that you didn't have parents that treated you that you were 12. But while you're here, you're 12 and you're gonna experience a childhood that you didn't get to experience.

Speaker 2: 55:11

Because I will never forget her coming in and you know, her mom sold her to this man who paid their bills and this, and that was a Domestic situation. She was from Palm Beach County. But I will tell you, two years later I saw, because she she also told me she didn't belong at Place of Hope because she worshiped the devil. She said I worshiped the devil, lady, I don't belong here. And I'm thinking sister, this is exactly where you belong.

Speaker 2: 55:32

And I remember seeing her in church two years later and she had her hand raised in the air and she was singing and she got baptized and she decided to go to one of the local we have some scholarships at some private schools. It's just been a huge blessing that people provide. And they called me and said she can play the guitar and she was playing in chapel, singing, and I thought what a blessing. And if someone I think that's the blessing of being at Place of Hope for so long is when you see kids, when they first come in and then you get to fast forward. Even though it took that, wasn't easy and that did that transition didn't happen overnight, but a couple years later fast forward to watch it. It was just a complete blessing to be a part of, because it really was like a watching a miracle happen.

Speaker 1: 56:12

Oh, there's so many stories like that I don't think the average person out in the community realizes this even goes on, and Not to mention what it's what it's like and what they've been through and where they end up, and those those kinds of stories. I'll never forget when the the secretary of the whole Department of Children and Families, call me on my cell phone about a very particular girl, if you remember who at the time we were running a safe house, a Confidentially located safe house which we, you know, as we know, we do a different model now that even has us with double that capacity of the Young people in our care. But he called and said you have to please we heard about the, the progress it's taking place in these kids lives and the, the hurdles that they're jumping over through your care. Can you take this one young lady? I'll leave her nameless, but we did remember that and she was. She was on the run when he called me and they found her and they placed her in our care.

Speaker 2: 56:59

I remember her because her she was actually kidnapped and her pimp Tattooed his name on her eyelids. She was 13 years old.

Speaker 1: 57:11

I will never forget her she actually did very well for a long time, but the most stable placement. That same secretary of DCF called me back I think it was well over a year in and that thanked us and the team for for taking her in, because it was the only Consistency had ever seen. One of the things we've been able to do over the years, whether it's foster care, whether it's aging out and what, and even in the human trafficking realm, if you will, and discussions up in Tallahassee in the legislative cycles, place of hopes been able to go up there and speak on behalf of policies, things that work, things that we see that work and things we see that don't work. And we've been blessed over the years to speak on the issue of human trafficking and take a kind of a leadership role, not just from someone who's talking about the subject area, but from an organization that to this day has you said seven right now it's fluid, sometimes it's as many as 12, but we're talking about young people who have been trafficked and the trauma that goes with that and the retraining of the brain that's necessary to get them to even think about becoming successful in days. So you know we're excited to be able to to do that as well Over time.

Speaker 1: 58:11

One of the areas I want to talk about real quick, as I always like to say that you know the good stuff about the place I hope, model right, it's the things you've heard talked about today. It's the mentoring. It's the tutoring, it's the people that sew into the own kids lives. It's the ability to take a family vacation, to be involved in sports and playing an instrument or whatever those different things. Are that so many people? We've talked about those things. It's not. Well, that's what's what's abnormal about that.

Speaker 1: 58:33

I do that, my kids do that, or I send my kids to this and that and you know away camps in the summer or whatever it is.

Speaker 1: 58:38

Well, it is really different for a lot of kids in care and some of our kids come in they've never even had a birthday party, they've never celebrated when, they've never had a birthday cake and all that stuff is a very big deal for us.

Speaker 1: 58:47

And so, prior to having our regional enrichment centers that we have, the Berlin family's built one for us, the Lane family's built one for us, the Frankino family's built one for us and now the Boswell family's helped build one up in Stewart which we're launching very soon. It's, it's so critical in that and you know, explain where those buildings are, really, kind of, you know, undergirds that, because you know that that's how critical it is to what we do. But prior to those centers, we used to just say this is the cool stuff we do in the homes, you know, and we have on-site visitation which we might have had, like you know, for people visiting each child in the house on an average day, and we were able to move all that and really put a focus on futures and a photo focus on what you can be common, how you, how you take the steps to get there, why that is so critical and the support that people give us for it.

Speaker 2: 59:31

So that's actually one of my favorite parts about our program is our enrichment program, because, besides the like, we do the career days and we do the mentoring. We do that, but the community has wrapped around us. So most people probably don't know this. But, like, medicaid doesn't pay for braces, so we have an orthodontist in the community who puts braces on our kids for free and it just, it changes their whole Self-image. And then our sports programs, like our local Recreation department gives us scholarships, so our kids have been able to play basketball and football and flag football and soccer. Our girls, our boys, they're all playing.

Speaker 2: 1:00:04

And I will tell you, most of them have never played an organized sport. And I get what you're saying. Like, yeah, my kids grew up playing. What's the big deal? Well, they've never been able to do it because they've never been able to afford it or have equipment.

Speaker 2: 1:00:14

So when we have people who give us scholarships or donors who wrap around and provide cleats and equipment, and a little boy the other day and I know, charles, I sent you the video he scored his first goal and, if you this joy on his face and immediately he looked over to his foster parents who were there Cheering him on. Well, he's never had that experience right for it. It's a big deal in a child's life to be able to do those kind of things and so. And then birthday Most of our kids have never had a birthday party I've never and so we have someone bake these cakes for these kids. And we had a group of ladies get together the other day and they made these beautiful baskets for our girls at Joanne's for Mother's Day. So on Mother's Day morning when they woke up, they have these beautiful baskets that these ladies put together for them and they started to cry.

Speaker 1: 1:00:58

They were, they were so excited because no one had ever blessed them like that before and they got to celebrate and it was just we had another group of ladies that came in recently with the quilts and so forth and took a tour and you think that that's that becomes part of our blessings bags, that we do an animals cove Pays for a lot of those blessings bags for us each year in the contents. And think about that your kid who comes and remember Remember we were told this was gonna happen all those years and we didn't believe it and the kids would show up with a garbage bag over their shoulder with maybe a change of clothing, and that was their suitcase. We always said no kid ever leaves here with that. But when they get here they're gonna get everything that they need, you know, to be able to go to school that next day with dignity and a smile on their face. You know, while they're navigating these circumstances and so forth, but you know the blessings bag even not inside the bag, but alongside of it comes a bicycle. Every kid that comes into care Gets a bicycle. They're all gonna have birthday parties, keen seniors, whatever.

Speaker 1: 1:01:51

It is right we're getting ready to go into the end of the year. We do our own Graduation ceremonies, that speakers, we make a big deal out of us talking to Rebecca today about how we're gonna really amp it up this year even more. You know we do the street signs, the yard signs, all that fun stuff, because we want them to understand that they shattered the statistics. They made it significant. It's a big deal for any kid graduating and and a family coming around them to celebrate those milestones. Man, how much more for our young people when they haven't experienced that most of the time. And that's kind of like in a nutshell what that whole enrichment thing is. Right, I mean, you know, tea at villages if that's a big key part, it's independent living, skills training, but it's all the other good stuff that people that get involved and and come help, whether it might even be a volunteer day right when they're just helping to keep the housing looking nice.

Speaker 3: 1:02:39

Absolutely, and I'm just so excited, even, like you said, enrichment even for that age.

Speaker 3: 1:02:45

You know, sometimes people think, okay, 18, they're good there, you know.

Speaker 3: 1:02:50

But we've been able to have enrichment, step in to give them, like Gina said, birthdays, any holiday, not just for our mothers, but even for our young adults, the young male, the young females.

Speaker 3: 1:03:00

They're able to come around Scholarships. We've been able to offer them scholarships because of the different ones that have stepped up and said you know what, if they want to further the education, we want to come alongside them, and so we've been able to get all of that for that population is it's a great thing to just see how enrichment come in, step in and said you know what, if someone needs a car and they're willing to come alongside them to help them get a car, those things are important because once we've been able to do the budgeting with them and now they're seeing the results of why I Needed to save my money, why I needed to, you know, go back to school or trade school, you know we've been able to have the different ones to say you know what, if they want to go to trade school, how can we look into helping them out, you know, and so they. It's been wonderful just to see Everyone's happened to Everything that enrichment have provided for even village love.

Speaker 1: 1:03:52

The all our village are hopeers, yeah and a component of that, whether they're in care or whether they've aged out of care. What is there in our care if, so to speak, at place of hope of the maternity home you name it? One of the things that's so beautiful is we've had families step up over the years to create this scholarship endowment funds with us to, whereas you know, like a lot of people don't know if the age out of foster care in Florida you can get tuition reimbursement or tuition waiver, basically where you know you in a some ways you get to go for free. We've had people step up to create these funds because there's all this gap stuff that takes place where you know you got books and you got fees and you got. You know sometimes it's housing and you got all these different things that you need and that still becomes a barrier to our young people. Go into school, whether it's tech school or university or community, whatever it is. Now we have these funds that people have given to. There's just so many cool things. We just have 50 something people from a big real estate firm that we're out here the other day mulching and cleaning windows and picking weeds and helping. That Just bring you know in the charity world. You know, saved money is made money. You know, right, that's. The only thing we can do is control expenses, but we get to continue expanding this with these campuses that we've taken over.

Speaker 1: 1:04:53

But enrichment is just gonna always be a big part of everything we do, because I look at that as kind of like the fuel that gets them to the next level. There's accountability in there, but it's also a great way to engage the community. I get so excited when more groups step up to do these kinds of things with us, especially as it relates to enrichment. One of the things we got to do recently was to literally Take a group of young people and have brunch with the former first lady of the United States, marnia Trump, and she invited them in and and a few of us went over there and to see these young people Engage with her and engage in that environment, which would be pretty daunting in a lot of ways. Right, and to just enjoy that time with her and to be made feel special and order off the menu. Whatever that, whatever they wanted and they did, by the way, it was awesome and and just have someone at that level to pour into them and and they've met so many amazing People over the years that it just makes it super, super special.

Speaker 1: 1:05:47

Well, the last things I want to talk about real quick is how, you know, we deal with a rapidly changing system, whether it's, you know, child welfare for kids under 18 and the judicial system that oversees that in the state of Florida, and the changing policies and things that happen legislatively that impact the system. And when I always say that I'm so grateful that we have done such a good job of creating a support-based through community-based care where we, you know, we, partner with the government but we have the private sector who just does all the additional and makes it, so, you know, possible to have a high quality of care. But one of those changes we've seen in the system is where a lot of these young people are being placed with relatives and what they call non-relative care giving status, which is people in their families basically are close to their families, who have stepped up to take them in so they don't land in licensed foster care. Well, those numbers are huge, right, and so we started seeing the derivation in the placement types and what was really taking place out there in our network, which you know goes all the way from North Broward all the way up into the treasure coast. Pretty big area, a lot of bed capacity, and we started seeing where they were moving these kids in with relatives and not that that's a bad thing in any way, right.

Speaker 1: 1:06:52

But what we found is that a lot of these people didn't have the resources and don't have the resources, and so we've been so grateful with our Shade Tree Family Outreach Program, which in some ways is related in with our the overlay for enrichment and so forth, but another great way to engage the community. Right, you guys see it all the time where they'll do these drives for us corporate drives, civic drives, church drives, kids at schools doing drives for the necessities of these families taking these young kids in. Because imagine, right overnight, all of a sudden, you find out your grandchildren are going into the system and there's two of them I'm just making this up, but this is very real and overnight you take a four and a two-year-old in because you don't want to see them lost to the child welfare system or possibly placed out of county. In a community like right now, where we're seeing a spike of the number of kids going into licensed foster care, there's no, there might not even be any beds for them so they might get placed out of county. And so grandma say, takes them in and all of a sudden, you know she needs help overnight.

Speaker 1: 1:07:46

And so our that program right now we've only really, you know, brought it to the newest level of where it's at in the you know the last year and right now we're serving anywhere from 100 to 140 families a month and the you know, the cool thing about that is that most of that is driven by the community directly helping us with these community drives for diapers and formula and car seats and packing, plays and clothing and shoes and all the things that those kids need overnight. Because, as you guys know, a lot of times they're pulled from domestic violence situations where the police don't even want to go remove them from the house, they remove them from school, they have nothing with them and they come with nothing. We see that in foster care, we see it post 18, but but it's also with these family members. So grandma steps up to do what's right and what everybody would want to try to do but doesn't have the resources. And so that's a new area for us that we're just blessed to be a part of and people can step up and also just knowing that the people that come to our events, the people that that, the foundations that supports them, the corporate groups and the sponsorships of events and just all the things you guys see in the programs, the mentors, the tutors this is truly community based care. It's community driven and it is a blessing to be a part of it over all these years.

Speaker 1: 1:08:56

And I just I don't know if you all have one closing statement. You want to. Yeah, come on, you got something.

Speaker 2: 1:09:02

I was thinking about, because this will reach the community, our donors. I don't know that they realize what a blessing they are. Like you mentioned bikes the other day, what you probably didn't mention all the very kids get bikes. Most of them have never had a bike, so they don't actually know how to ride a bike. So it is so sweet to see the other kids in the house teach them how to ride a bike up and down the street. And 17 year old a little girl not a little girl, but little girl to me because I will she the other girls in the house teaching her to ride up and down. And the bike had a bell and she was ringing her bell and she was so excited and the other girls were cheering her on and it's something like oh it's, it's a bike. Of course, your kids had a bike since they were three, but our kids haven't. Our kids have never had a bike. So, having donors like I'll get them a bike and I'll bake them a birthday cake and I'll get them closed.

Speaker 2: 1:09:47

And you mentioned garbage bags the other day. Well, our kids haven't even been coming in with garbage bags. They've been coming with like a little Winn Dixie bag with, because they've been coming. Almost a lot of them have been coming homeless, so they've been coming with nothing shoes, socks, nothing. And so being able to go to our, you know, get all these donations with, and to be able to put clothes on them and have something to wear with dignity and not, you know, gently used or new, to be able to put them on and have nice and see them participate in all these things, it's just such a blessing. And I'm not sure because it might not seem like a big deal to a donor to donate, but it makes a huge difference to the child.

Speaker 1: 1:10:20

Oh yeah, and you know all those volunteers that help with our clothing closets on our various campuses and you know that stuff comes in. We got a weed through it, we got to. Sometimes we got to clean some certain things, but we got to put it on the shelves and fold it and all that goes into that, that the community engages in, is a blessing to T what you got to say.

Speaker 3: 1:10:35

And I just think it's important. I'm just having a volunteer group on Thursday and it's been wonderful to just have volunteer groups like we had on Thursday just to come out to say you know what? We not only want to come and volunteer for you all, but we want to adopt you all for a Christmas in July and then we want to turn around and adopt you all for Christmas in December. So I think that's important and, like Gina said, for our donors to know how much we appreciate them and even for our volunteers, for those that just say you know what, we want to bring you items to make a welcome basket for those residents that are actually coming in. It's important. Just, it might seem very small, but to us is very huge. It's a big gift that we're giving into the lives of our young people.

Speaker 1: 1:11:20

And we see the results. We see how these kids make it to a whole nother level, just like the young man that was in my office today, just seeing where he was and where he is now recognizing how important it is that the accomplishments that he's made with the help of others. And I think that's probably one of our favorite things is when you see these young people who are truly grateful in their hearts because they know what it was like and they know what it is now, and we always remind them that that's God that delivered that, but it's also who he uses on this earth, the people who step up to make it all possible. It is truly a blessing. We're pumped about the future.

Speaker 1: 1:11:50

You know we've got this campaign we've launched to build out all of our campuses more to come on all that. But we're definitely going to have you both back, whether it's together, individually. Be prepared. People want to hear the stories, people want to know what's going on at Place Ope, but nobody, nobody has more experience, nobody has bigger hearts for what we do at Place Ope than you guys, and I'm personally grateful for you in your leadership roles. And many more to come, many more years to come and a lot to still do, but we're just thankful and grateful to this community for making it even possible. Thank you, guys.

Speaker 3: 1:12:21

Thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:12:26

For today's Hope in Action segment, I want to talk about something great that just took place. Recently we had our formal dedication of our Stuart campus, which was literally given to us over a year and a half ago by another charity. It's now hours, has been hours now for a little bit, and we got to the point where we could dedicate the land and prepare for the future growth section of that campus which is going to be called our village, and that's where a lot of the new transitional, affordable housing is going to go up Nothing like it in Stuart at all, and we had we held that event and we had well over a hundred people in attendance. We were able to dedicate the Bender family village and the Snyder family complex, the first building to go up. Thanks to John and Bobby Irby, the generous donors who made that all possible. It was a great time of the friendship, the collective energy of people excited to see what's coming and the impact that's going to be had for so many years to come, with affordable transitional housing for the young people aging out of foster care that need it the most and our young single moms with dependent children who literally just have nowhere else to go, and so it was a huge day for Place of Hope as a whole, but a huge day for Place of Hope in Stuart Martin County, and we just had such a great time.

Speaker 1: 1:13:58

The staff put together an amazing celebratory time and we had, I think, every local news station showed up and we're just. We set the stage for what's to come and as soon as we get those permits in hand, we'll be building and that landscape up there will be forever changed, and that's today's Hope in Action. So much can grow from even just one small seed of hope. Thank you for becoming a part of our community, helping us grow and become an ambassador of Hope yourself. Please be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a single uplifting moment. For further details and information on how you can connect with us, please go to placeofhopecom slash podcast. That's placeofhopecom forward slash podcast and we'd love to hear from you anytime. Please email us at pohpodcast at placeofhopecom, or find us on social media. Ambassadors of Hope Placing Hope in a Child's Future.