Where children are cherished and futures are fostered
At Our Mother’s Home, we have had the privilege of receiving grant funds from the NAILBA Charitable Foundation for the past six years for our Mentored Living program.
As with any nonprofit, it can be a struggle to maintain, or increase, funding each year. We receive donations from a variety of sources and without the help of grants such as this one, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do.
We have helped more than 400 teen mothers and their children get the basic life skills they need to have a productive life and help break the cycle of poverty, abuse and human-trafficking.
Our Mother’s Home of Southwest Florida, Inc., provides a safe and nurturing environment for teen moms ages 12-21 in foster care and their babies. Prior to the launch of Our Mother’s Home in 2000, teenage mothers in foster care were often separated from their child at birth. This unique home is the only one in Southwest Florida to provide this service to break the cycle one teen at a time.
The Mentored Living program promotes education, health, happiness and integration into the community with home-based support services for teen mothers. We provide parenting classes, therapy and life skills education, counseling and tutoring, personal care and housekeeping, and independent living training.
Adolescent mothers continue their high school education and receive the tutoring classes they need. The girls participate in our “Nurturing Parenting Program,” which introduces positive family values which were foreign to them as children living in long-term multiple foster placements.
Just as importantly, each young mother and her child receive proper medical care, including pre/post-natal care, well-child visits, vision, dental, physical and mental care. The children are able to get a healthy, positive start in life and many of the mothers receive the care they had been denied in the past.
This grant has helped us help so many moms and their children. Specifically, the grant in 2019 changed the lives of three teen moms and two former residents and participants of the Mentored Living Program at Our Mother’s Home.
Three teen moms graduated with high school diplomas and two former moms graduated from local colleges. The college graduates both obtained professional jobs in their field of study. One became a second grade teacher and the other a dental hygienist.
More importantly, each mother has retained custody of her child while working and continuing her education. They would not have been able to see this achievement as a possibility without having the love, guidance, empowerment and support of Our Mother’s Home.
Not only are these mothers a success story for our community, but they also are great role models for their children who they are now raising in a happy, healthy environment.
These are just a few of our recent success stories that show the impact this grant can make in the Southwest Florida community. We have been able to preserve the families of about 90 percent of our Mentored Living participants.
We have been able to help Dorothy, who arrived just before turning 17. She had been placed in foster care at age eight and had been sexually abused by a family member. She and her child were able to stay together while she received a high school diploma and enrolled in college. She now has her own apartment and is attending school.
Another success story is Sean, who arrived at Our Mother’s Home as an infant diagnosed with “failure to thrive” syndrome from lack of nurturing. Sean and his mother, a victim of Human Trafficking, had been separated for 11 months; she was forced to work in the fields while baby Sean lay swaddled on a wooden palette. When they were reunited at Our Mother’s Home Sean was 21 months old but functioned only at the level of a six-month-old. Sean began to thrive at Our Mother’s Home, receiving the physical and speech therapy he so desperately needed to save his life. Today, Sean is a healthy and happy child and his mother received the love and support she had been lacking so she could build her confidence and become a good parent.
These lives were changed because grants such as this one help us provide a service no one else is providing. It gives mothers hope and it gives their child a chance at a good life. Without grants and our dedicated supporters we wouldn’t have these success stories to share.
Local NAILBA member Bob Lombardo, president of Lombardo Brokerage Services, nominated Our Mother’s Home, Mentored Living Program. We are proud to have Mr. Lombardo’s support as well as overwhelming support from the community.
There are many organizations, clubs, churches and other groups that hold fundraisers for Our Mother’s Home because they believe in our mission and they see the results. Our sponsors and donors know their commitment will do more than save the life of a child. It will preserve our community’s future. These mothers become successful, productive members of our community. These children grow up becoming active members of society—our teachers and leaders. In addition, we have designed our Mentored Living Program as a prototype home and model program that, with your help, could be duplicated all across the country.
By simultaneously mentoring foster mothers to care for their children, counseling them to overcome histories of childhood abuse and keeping them together with their baby throughout, Our Mother’s Home is breaking the cycle of foster care for this forgotten special population of youth.
Because of supporters with huge hearts, we are able to continue breaking the cycle of abuse, neglect and generational poverty that afflicts teen mothers. We are grateful to be awarded the grant from the NAILBA Charitable Foundation.
To help with the great work of Our Mother’s Home, please visit http://OurMothersHome.com and make a donation. To learn more about the efforts of the NAILBA Charitable Foundation to improve lives in communities throughout our country and make a donation please visit http://nailbacharitablefoundation.org.
The Mission Of Ark House
The Mission of Ark House is to provide low cost temporary housing for out of town patients and their families while undergoing extended medical treatment in the Dallas area.
After a battery of tests at your local hospital, your doctor informs you that you will need to travel to Dallas for additional tests and very likely a series of treatments lasting several months. There are dozens of decisions to be made…all under the duress of a life threatening illness. You and your spouse will need a place to stay. You cannot afford the daily rate for a Dallas area hotel not to mention the cost of meals at Dallas restaurants. Besides, the doctors have advised that a special diet may be in order.
You and your spouse take extended leaves from your jobs and travel the 200 miles to Dallas. The journey has just begun…..
Ark House was begun in December, 1985 by The Ark Sunday School class of First United Methodist Church of Richardson. The idea was born from the need of one of its members whose two-and-a-half year battle with Hodgkin’s disease meant staying near his treating hospital in Houston for much of his therapy. The vision of providing temporary housing for hospitalized and extended care patients and their families in Dallas became reality through the efforts of this class.
The members of the class maintained the project for several years but Ark House grew beyond their capabilities. The Ark House Board of Directors is now the administrative body. This diverse group of individuals runs the entire project. Ark House has no paid staff; all money collected goes directly into the project.
Although most Ark House occupants come from small towns across Texas, some have traveled from Europe, Canada and the Near East to receive treatment at Dallas area hospitals. Different religions, races, genders and ages are represented. Approximately 30 percent of the patients are children whose parents need to be by their side. Patients and their families are referred to Ark House by hospital social workers that are in a position to determine financial need. Baylor, Presbyterian, Parkland, UT Southwestern and Medical City routinely refer patients to Ark House.
In 1995 NAIFA-Dallas (then the Dallas Association of Life Underwriters) planned to sponsor a golf tournament but was in need of finding a charity to be the beneficiary. After interviewing several very worthwhile charities, we realized that Ark House was an ideal fit. As members of the life and health insurance industry we were quite aware of the fact that Ark House provided something crucial to the well-being of people with serious medical conditions and living in the bottom strata of economic security. Although in most cases the patients coming to Dallas have their most significant medical costs covered by health insurance (or in some cases charity) there is still the prospect of having to pay living expenses while in Dallas—not to mention that the mortgage, utilities and other expenses back home still have to be paid. We decided that what Ark House provided was something few traditional forms of health insurance provided. We could fill that need by raising money for Ark House. Several members of the insurance community have and continue to serve in various Ark House positions.
A few years later, recognizing that if Ark House were to establish a non-profit 501(c)(3) we would be able to open more doors and offer more opportunities for donors to give, as a result we could help Ark House expand by adding more apartments. At our encouragement Ark House established The Ark House Foundation and within a few years we had grown from nine apartments to 21. We had more than doubled our capacity to help people. About 10 years ago we were able to consolidate all Ark House apartments at one centrally located complex convenient to Dallas hospitals. These one bedroom apartments are each fully furnished including living room, dining and bedroom furniture, linens, cooking utensils, dishes, cable TV, high speed internet, etc. Pictures and wall hangings, along with a few magazines and books, give the apartments a homey atmosphere conducive to the healing process.
The all volunteer Ark House Board is made up of people from various walks of life, that in many cases do Ark House work unrelated to their career skills. We have to have somebody to answer the phone and engage with the prospective tenant to check availability. We have a “make ready” person to clean an apartment prior to the arrival of a new patient and “checkers” that at least weekly check on the resident. Apartment furnishings from furniture to bed sheets have to be updated and replaced.
In addition to providing a place to stay, Ark House also assigns a volunteer (a shepherd) to provide a liaison to the occupants by answering questions, advising of the locations of stores, etc., or just being someone to listen. This adds a personal touch while they are in Dallas and quite often relieves some of the anxiety of staying in a big city so far away from home.
Several years ago I served as a shepherd to an Ark House patient. Jerry was a retired Metropolitan Life agent from a small town outside of Houston. Having worked for Met in the early days of my career we had a lot to talk about. Jerry was needing to be nearby his treating hospital waiting for a double lung transplant. Over the course of several months we communicated regularly. Several times he would call all excited that a match had been found, only to be disappointed. He ultimately got his transplant but it didn’t go well. He called and left a voicemail to let me know that he was going home. I instinctively knew he didn’t mean to his home outside of Houston.
In the early days of Ark House we charged the residents five dollars per day. That amount has gone up to $28. Without the charity of organizations such as the NAILBA Charitable Foundation the rate would be much higher. NAILBA has made generous contributions to Ark House over the last several years, the most recent being in 2019. That contribution was not only significant in size but due to COVID-19 it was quite timely. Elective surgeries all but stopped in the early days of the pandemic, so our occupancy rate dropped from about 85 percent to less than 50 percent. As a result we reduced the number of apartments from 21 down to 16. The NAILBA contribution was a difference maker in our cash flow.
Ark House has more than survived over the last 35 years. Ark House has grown due to the efforts of many caring people and the generosity of donors that recognize the value in the Ark House mission. Our needs are quite simple: In order to continue to provide low-cost, safe, and convenient extended care housing, it is imperative that we raise sufficient funding to enable Ark House to charge only $28 per night. Charging a greater amount would be beyond the means of Ark House clientele.
To learn more about Ark House or hopefully to make a donation visit ArkHouseDallas.org. To learn more about the work of the NAILBA Charitable Foundation, or to make a donation, please visit nailbacharitablefoundation.org.