Carmi-based organization aided 1003 last year - Carmi Times
A reasonable person might believe that a not-for-profit organization headquartered in little Carmi, Ill. was doing everything it possibly could when it reached out to help 1,003 people in 2011.
A reasonable person would be wrong.
Baptist Children's Home & Family Services has entered into two new partnerships that will extend its reach even more in 2012 and beyond.
Doug Devore, the administrator of the rural Carmi agency, told the Kiwanis Club of Carmi Thursday that BCHFS is now working with an orphanage in Uganda (see related story) and is partnering with Safe Families, a young organization working to provide children from troubled families with safe, temporary homes.
"We've been taking care of children and families here for 94 years," Devore said, adding that BCHFS served 1,003 people last year through its residential care facility outside Carmi and its Angels Cove maternity center in Mt. Vernon, Ill. In addition, it operates Christian counseling centers in Carmi, Harrisburg and six other Illinois communities, and it provides assistance to people hoping to adopt children.
But even a thousand people is just a drop in the bucket of those in need, the club was told. And so a decision was made to work with Safe Families to extend help to even more children and families.
Safe Families, now operating in 18 states, is a substitute for foster care, Devore said, a way to provide a temporary, safe place for children to live while their parents deal with the problems that threaten the family. And it's done through churches and volunteer families that agree to provide the temporary homes.
BCHFS has contracted with Safe Families to provide those services in all Illinois south of Effingham, Devore said, and is targeting churches to provide help and host families.
"No money changes hands," he told the club. "It's done purely out of Christian hospitality" and uses people who are willing to accept the responsibility of caring for the children.
BCHFS will network with a wide variety of agencies to identify families in crisis and find an appropriate host family. Stays average 45 days and can extend up to a year, Devore said.
The club was shown a video of a segment on Safe Families which TV news anchor Katie Couric recently narrated. She spoke with several participating parents; one professional husband and wife lost both their jobs and their home, and their daughters went to live with a host family for the period it took the parents to stabilize their lives. Another young mother learned that she had cancer; as a consequence, she lost her job, and she was able to place her children with Safe Families until her situation improved and she was able to take her children back.
A reasonable person might believe that a not-for-profit organization headquartered in little Carmi, Ill. was doing everything it possibly could when it reached out to help 1,003 people in 2011.
A reasonable person would be wrong.
Baptist Children's Home & Family Services has entered into two new partnerships that will extend its reach even more in 2012 and beyond.
Doug Devore, the administrator of the rural Carmi agency, told the Kiwanis Club of Carmi Thursday that BCHFS is now working with an orphanage in Uganda (see related story) and is partnering with Safe Families, a young organization working to provide children from troubled families with safe, temporary homes.
"We've been taking care of children and families here for 94 years," Devore said, adding that BCHFS served 1,003 people last year through its residential care facility outside Carmi and its Angels Cove maternity center in Mt. Vernon, Ill. In addition, it operates Christian counseling centers in Carmi, Harrisburg and six other Illinois communities, and it provides assistance to people hoping to adopt children.
But even a thousand people is just a drop in the bucket of those in need, the club was told. And so a decision was made to work with Safe Families to extend help to even more children and families.
Safe Families, now operating in 18 states, is a substitute for foster care, Devore said, a way to provide a temporary, safe place for children to live while their parents deal with the problems that threaten the family. And it's done through churches and volunteer families that agree to provide the temporary homes.
BCHFS has contracted with Safe Families to provide those services in all Illinois south of Effingham, Devore said, and is targeting churches to provide help and host families.
"No money changes hands," he told the club. "It's done purely out of Christian hospitality" and uses people who are willing to accept the responsibility of caring for the children.
BCHFS will network with a wide variety of agencies to identify families in crisis and find an appropriate host family. Stays average 45 days and can extend up to a year, Devore said.
The club was shown a video of a segment on Safe Families which TV news anchor Katie Couric recently narrated. She spoke with several participating parents; one professional husband and wife lost both their jobs and their home, and their daughters went to live with a host family for the period it took the parents to stabilize their lives. Another young mother learned that she had cancer; as a consequence, she lost her job, and she was able to place her children with Safe Families until her situation improved and she was able to take her children back.
Couric said Safe Families has helped more than 1,000 children over five years, but requests for assistance have doubled. And she added that the program is similar in effect to the massive volunteer efforts of the Depression years, when children from struggling families were often given to other, better-off family members to raise.
Devore said Andrea Biggerstaff is the BCHFS coordinator for Safe Families, and he invited his listeners to call her at 382-4165 for more information.
Luke Raczykowski, the Kiwanis president and pastor of First Baptist Church, said his congregation is working on becoming a Safe Families hub and invited members of the public to contact him if they wish to help.
Thursday's meeting was held at the Farm Bureau Building in Carmi, and the program followed a meal prepared and served by The Green Onion of Crossville.
In club business, Dr. Clint Taylor passed out Pancake Day tickets for club members to sell or give away; tickets are $4 in advance (and $5 at the door on Saturday morning, Feb. 25 at the middle school cafeteria in Carmi). Kiwanians will be asked at their Feb. 2 meeting to sign up to work two-hour shifts that day.
Members were also invited to sign up to attend (with an escort) the annual joint Valentine's Day meeting of Carmi's Kiwanians, Lions and Rotarians. The event will begin at 6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 16 at the American Legion Hall. And the Kiwanians also signed a get-well card for J.C. Tinsley, who recently underwent surgery.
Keith Hoskins, a past Kiwanis lieutenant governor, inducted Jeremy Jordan of Campbell Funeral Home into the club. New Kiwanians are invited to fill out an informational sheet listing details of their background and families, as well as their favorite musicians and so on. Hoskins joked that Jordan's favorite group is The Grateful Dead and that he wants to be remembered in these words: "you made me look good."
Brad Lee won the weekly 50-50 drawing, splitting a jackpot of $30 with the club.
