Hope Mississippi
A bimonthly podcast educating Mississippians about the needs of fellow citizens, encouraging residents to work together to change the trajectory of our families and children, and sharing success stories.
Hope Mississippi
Chickens, Gardens, and Healing Hearts: Not Your Average Children's Home
Nestled on 42 acres in Purvis, Mississippi, Homes of Hope stands as a beacon of possibility for vulnerable children across the state. In this deeply moving conversation, Executive Director Dr. Scott Hanberry reveals how this unique residential ministry is transforming lives by providing much more than shelter – they're cultivating genuine hope.
Unlike traditional institutional settings, Homes of Hope creates actual family environments where children live in single-family homes with dedicated house parents who provide stability, safety, and unconditional love. "We serve at-risk children from all over Mississippi and their families," Hanberry explains, emphasizing that family reunification remains a priority whenever possible.
Using trust-based relational intervention, staff help children move from a constant state of fight-or-flight into a place where healing and growth become possible. As Hanberry poignantly notes, "Hope is thinking of the future, and many of these kids come in a state of survival."
What sets this ministry apart is its holistic approach to development. From gardens and chickens that teach responsibility to innovative partnerships with local universities for tutoring, every aspect of campus life serves a deeper purpose. Even recreational spaces like their new fire pit facilitate healing conversations, which Hanberry describes as "therapy we couldn't pay for."
The most powerful moments come through success stories – a young woman with undiagnosed dyslexia now thriving in college, house parents gifting a minivan to help reunite a family, and teenagers recognizing their time at Homes of Hope not as an obstacle but as "a springboard into successful adult life."
Ready to make a difference? Discover how you can Pray, Provide resources, or Participate directly in this transformative work. As Hanberry reminds us, "We're not all called to be foster parents, but we're all called to do something."
To learn more about Homes of Hope or to arrange a tour, call 769-456-7021 or email Scott at Scott@HomesOfHope.ms.
Relevant scripture: James 1:27
Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their misfortune and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
When you need some hope and inspiration to build collaboration.
Speaker 2:Hope Mississippi is your salvation One in four kids live in poverty.
Speaker 1:One in five are food deprived. Build collaborations and build hope with those who are struggling. Build collaborations and build hope with those who are struggling. Hope Mississippi. Hello and welcome to Hope Mississippi. I'm Dawn Beam and I host this twice a month. And'm so glad that you've chosen to join us today. Today we have Dr Scott Hanbury with us, who is the Executive Director of Homes of Hope. Is that right?
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:And, if it's all right with you, I'm just going to call you Scott and you're going to call me Dawn. Okay, Dawn, that's wonderful. Thanks so much for having me on. Great. Tell us what is. Homes of Hope, Sure.
Speaker 2:Well, the short answer is that it's a ministry, but it is a residential children's home and we serve at-risk children from all over the state of Mississippi and their families. That's conceptually. What is it physically? It is a 42-acre campus in Purvis, Mississippi, and there, on that beautiful campus, we have single-family homes and we bring in kids that come out of crisis situations of no fault of their own, just because of the family circumstance, and we offer them stability, safety and just a place to heal and to experience hope.
Speaker 1:And you know, you never know when someone you know may need the service of Homes of Hope. I'm reminded a little child in our neighborhood. A grandmother could not physically take care of her and I just mentioned Homes of Hope to her and it has been such a blessing to that family. So you just never know who you're going to be able to help.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and so many people have preconceived ideas. You know they ask is it an orphanage, is it an institution? And it's not. When they come on our campus I think most folks are blown away at how inviting and what a home feel it is. But we take kids from four until 17. And then we actually have kids that will stay.
Speaker 1:They'll move out of the cottage into an apartment and go to college. We're helping them with that and just a springboard into successful life. You know that transition is so important. The studies are not good for foster children in particular transitioning out of foster care into the real world, and they're more likely to have drug and alcohol problems, end up in prison and early death, and so it's just important that really the Christian community in particular because that's what we're talking about, this is a faith-based organization reaches out. Let's talk a little bit about the mission of Homes of Hope, sure.
Speaker 2:Well, again, we serve at-risk children and families throughout the state of Mississippi by providing basically a stable home and we try to focus on four areas. Obviously, we want to meet their physical needs. We want to make sure that they have food and shelter and clothing and those kinds of things. And then emotional needs we want to make sure that we're helping with therapeutic care, just with counseling, that kind of thing. Obviously, spiritual help hope is predicated on the promises of God and the future. You know, we can put our hope in a lot of things with our fingers crossed, but we want them to know that there's a foundation of real hope. And then, obviously, their academic needs, and so we just provide all of those wraparound focused services where these Christian parents love on them and the mission is to serve those kids and to instill hope in their lives.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. They're houses they actually have. The kids have their own bedrooms and a great room where they all come together and eat as well as watch television, so you really want them to feel like they are at home.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We want to provide a home-like environment and when possible we want to reunify families. We want to provide a home-like environment and when possible we want to reunify families. We want to help them get back together so we don't say we serve just children, we serve children and families. But while they're in our care we want them to experience the best of what home life could and should be. And so those parents do devotionals. They cook breakfast and lunch and dinner during the obviously the summer months, that kind of thing. They eat lunches at school. They all go to get on the school bus and go to public school, and so it is a home-like environment.
Speaker 1:That is wonderful. Tell us a little bit about the kids. Where do they come from?
Speaker 2:They come from a variety of places. We do have CPS referrals, so Child Protective Services in Mississippi. Maybe they don't have a foster home immediately. They could take a sibling group. Or maybe they're older teenagers and sometimes foster families want younger children, so we take them. We also will have school counselors or pastors or youth ministers or, like you said, just a neighbor that sees a family that's struggling, they're in crisis and because of that they come our way and we walk through a process of intake and see if they're a good fit and see if we're a good fit to serve them.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I, as a judge and lawyer, for years have worked with kids that have gone through trauma in the home and I know that many of the folk that come in there the young kids. They've been through a variety of stresses in their life. What efforts do you do to try to help them to deal with that trauma and to overcome that?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm so glad you're asking that question. Every kid that is there has experienced trauma. Sometimes we think of trauma as being abuse or neglect or abandonment, but just being removed from your home is traumatic, you know. Moving for anybody is just a traumatic event, and so we really focus on building trust. We do trauma-informed care. We call it trust-based relational intervention is kind of the model that we follow. There's a lot of scientific research about it, but basically just building trust, meeting their needs, and then it creates an environment where they're comfortable, where you can correct behavior and make connections with them, and it makes all the difference in the world. Really, through empowering strategies like meeting their physical needs, you know when they feel safe they can begin to relax. When they trust you, they'll receive correction better and then from there the healing process takes place Right. We want to grow healthy children that end up being productive adults, and then from there the healing process takes place Right.
Speaker 1:We want to grow healthy children that end up being productive adults, and so part of that is helping them to overcome that trauma. That's right.
Speaker 2:Well, they so many times are living in fight or flight all the time. It's almost like living in a constant state of stress. One of the things that we say I don't want to drift off topic, but one of the things we say is for these house parents, oftentimes dealing with kids that have come out of trauma is much like going to a movie an hour late and then trying to figure out the rest of the movie and we don't know all that they've endured. And so we want to meet them where they are relationally and love them forward into hope. Because if you're in fight or flight, hope's not even on the radar.
Speaker 2:You know, hope is thinking of the future and many of these kids come and they're in just a state of survival in their own hearts and minds. And if you can help them relax through that, get the therapeutic care that they need, love on them, counsel them, encourage them, all of a sudden they can begin to dream about the future. So what we like to say is, every single day we're sowing seeds of hope. God ultimately gives the increase. He'll put that hope in their heart, but we're just constantly sowing seeds.
Speaker 1:That is so exciting. Before you came to Homes of Hope, you have a family and you actually live out there on the campus. Is that right?
Speaker 2:We do, we do. My wife, stephanie, and I have three daughters and two of them are grown and we have one grandson I got to get that in, got to mention him we have our youngest daughter is a freshman in college, but Stephanie and I have been in pastoral ministry for the last 36 years. I've pastored churches my whole adult life and career. That was my calling and our calling to Homes of Hope really was dovetailed by that. Because the board said we don't need a CEO, we need a shepherd. And I said, well, I can do that. And as God really steered us that direction, we ended up selling our house and we moved into an apartment on campus. We're all in. We traded a congregation in a church setting for a smaller congregation with deep, deep needs, but we absolutely love it. We're more fulfilled in ministry right now perhaps than ever in our lives. Our family loves it. Our kids have just been overwhelmed. Coming back for Thanksgiving and Christmas and being on campus with all of the bigger community of Homes of Hope has been a blast.
Speaker 1:I was recently asked to serve on the board of Homes of Hope and have just been amazed by all the great things going on, lots of changes going on. Can you tell us a little bit about the changes that are going on at Homes of Hope?
Speaker 2:Well, it's pretty amazing to see the things that God's doing and has done. Just I've been there a year almost and we just literally have to give him all the credit and all the glory. We started with an emphasis on spiritual growth. We just re-established, we're going to get the house parents together every week for prayer and for discipleship. We're going to encourage them, and I began to see that if we can keep our house parents healthy spiritually, everything else flows right.
Speaker 2:If they're in a state of distress or dealing with marriage issues or otherwise, then everything falls apart, and very quickly too. Those kids can. It's kind of like sharks with blood in the water they quickly frenzy, but when the parents are calm and regulated. We've hired two new sets of house parents, and so that was encouraging. We renovated one of the cottages and started filling it up with new kids. We contracted with Forest General Health and provided counseling at no charge to all of our staff. We wanted them to have a place where they could go and vent, a place where they could go and share, and so that was a big deal.
Speaker 1:Being that parent is really a calling too. You talked about how you and your wife. That's a calling, but those folks that are serving as those house parents are really being God's hands and feet.
Speaker 2:Without a doubt. We say that they are missionaries. Really they're commissioned into that work as missionaries because they are serving in a very unique cultural experience and they're reaching across cultural lines to meet the needs of these kids. More about the changes. One of the fun things that happened is last year we planted a garden and I think the house dads were a little stir crazy over the winter and so they plowed up about half of Lamar County. They planted everything they plowed so we had vegetables running out of our ears and we got chickens on campus and the kids helped be a part of all of that.
Speaker 1:With the price of eggs, it's good you got some chickens.
Speaker 2:That was an amazing investment, I tell you, it's like gold. We're getting a lot of eggs and the kids we made it part of their summer curriculum so we taught them about how to plant and how to tend to the garden and then they learn life skills. We've had Sunday school classes ladies that have come and helped them jar and can and cook. It's just been a lot of fun. All of those things have changed drastically the culture of the campus. So many kids these days are face down in a device and they don't talk to each other and they don't have good communication skills because of that. We set those things down and they started looking up and that's more than physical. It's a metaphor for where they're going. You know, they see hope in those chickens, they see hope in that garden because their work pays off.
Speaker 1:Now, as I recall from the board meeting recently, you're going to be having produce and eggs available for local Lamar County folks to come by right.
Speaker 2:We are. One of the things that we want to do is change the narrative of what people think. They see this campus with a big gate and they don't know what it is. Is it a subdivision or is it a compound? Well, we want to invite people onto the campus. So we're starting a farmer's market and at this year's garden we're planting flower gardens as well. So we want people to come and take pictures on the campus. We want people to come and buy cut flowers or get eggs or produce, but, more than anything, just become familiar with what we do. Obviously, we protect the residents. We want to protect their space. It's their home, but there's enough public space that we can invite people on.
Speaker 2:And I want people to recognize that Homes of Hope is a part of our community that we can be proud of. It's not for throwaway children. It's not, again, an orphanage. This is a place that helps. It's a place of healing, a place of hope. Somebody asked me early on is Homes of Hope the kind of place, scott, that you would send your own children if your family was in crisis? And they said don't answer it? Yet they said evaluate it and if it's not, make it that place. And so that's what we're working toward every day. It's the kind of place that my friends, if they had struggles, they could say you know what I know? A great place where that child could get some healing and some help place where that child could get some healing and some help.
Speaker 1:That thought occurs to me just in the work that I have done at Youth Corps is that not all of the kids that need a third party to take care of them come from necessarily a background of drugs and alcohol. Sometimes it's just bad unfortunate luck or poor health of an individual that really requires that they call on a third party because they don't have the family to fall back on.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and we've seen that you know, maybe a cancer diagnosis and they go through a long illness and that prolonged illness leads the kids to living with grandmothers and aunts and the loss of a job, and so it's not necessarily abandonment or neglect or abuse. It may be really good parents that are just struggling in bad circumstances and we can provide a place of respite and be a resource and again, hopefully, help the parents as well with life skills. That would get them a better job, get them reunited.
Speaker 1:You know, I think back when I was growing up, my mom and daddy used to make us get up early on Saturday morning or whatever, and go pick peas or butter beans. But what you're really doing is not just resulting in a crop being picked, but you're teaching kids about the importance of hard work and there's no price tag you can put on that. It's so important. How can other folks help?
Speaker 2:Well, dawn, you said right off the bat that I am a pastor at heart, so I'm going to give you three points, and they all start with the letter P. Three points in a poem Pray, provide and participate. So literally, the very first thing you can do for us is to pray Pray for the house, parents, pray for the children, pray for the state of Mississippi, for parents and for the system, pray for social workers and judges and all those people that are involved in the lives of kids. So we would ask you to do that. You can go to our website, homesofhopems, and download a prayer card. That's there. I'd love for people to do that, and it'll just give some prompts for them to pray for specific things.
Speaker 2:Secondly is provide. Obviously, we need finances. We don't start there. We ask people to pray sincerely because we believe God's our resource. People can donate. We're privately funded, and so we have churches, individuals, businesses, families that give regularly and recurringly, and that is huge. People can also provide. We have different supply needs, oftentimes paper goods or food list. We have a grocery store on campus, and so if you've got seven kids that you're caring for, going to the grocery store is an ordeal. We have a food services manager that helps us and we put together things there, but non-perishable food items. Oftentimes we'll do lists and have a drive and you can find that on our website as well. And then ultimately we say participate.
Speaker 2:There's two or three very obvious ways people can volunteer.
Speaker 2:We have 42 acres of land and so if we have people that like to mow grass, we've got lawn mowers and they can come, because you can just about hear it growing About the time we finish it's time to start over, so it constantly needs help.
Speaker 2:But we also get people to come and tutor. We've had ladies that have come and they've done classes on art or on sewing or smocking, cooking, tutoring. There's just a wide variety of things that people can do and it expands the horizon of these kids when they have opportunities to learn things. They're pretty unique because a lot of those things you know I certainly didn't have people coming to my house and doing special classes when I was a kid, but it really is special when people in the community get involved. One serious way that they can people may not feel called to do full-time fostering, they may not be able to, but they can become resource parents and we have people that go through a vetting process and they go through training and they get to know the kids as they volunteer and oftentimes they'll come and they can take a child for a weekend. They can take them to the mall or to a movie and invest time in those kids.
Speaker 1:That sounds wonderful. I'm reminded that you also have contacts with the universities in the area. We're so blessed to have two large universities in the Pine Belt area.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I met in fact this past week with Dr Joe Paul and with Dr Ben Burnett at both of our universities and they've made available to us placement opportunities. So the School of Social Work will be placing students that need to get intern hours on our campus. The schools of education of both are sending tutors. We have upper-level math classes that I certainly can't tutor. They get into calculus and chemistry and some of the sciences and I can't help. But we've got honor students from William Carey that are coming and tutoring one-on-one with our kids and it's just such a blessing, it's a win-win.
Speaker 1:Judge one time told me your greatest joy will come in serving others, and that's so true. It's a blessing to the kids that are there for the students to come, but I've got a feeling that those students are learning a lot just going out there and helping the kids.
Speaker 2:It really is much more blessed to give than to receive and you get more out of serving than a lot of times you put in. And they've said that over and over again.
Speaker 1:And you kind of hit the nail on the head. I say we're not all called to be foster parents, but we're all called to do something. So you encourage folks to come out to Homes of Hope and just see what they might be able to do right.
Speaker 2:We do. They can come and take a tour. We would love to just hear their heart for the gifts and the abilities they have and we may discover something we haven't even thought of that somebody wants to do. If somebody wanted to come and work in the garden with us, they could do that, and we have people that obviously have those skills and that passion and they can come and help. So, yes, we would love for them to come and visit.
Speaker 1:Now, last I was out there there was this cool fire pit and swings and things. I think Economy Supply helped you put that out there.
Speaker 2:They did. We went on a mission trip to East Tennessee last fall. We saw one of these fire pits. It was just a big arbor with swings on it and we came back and the kids said, could we get one of those together? And so we started working with some local contractors and economy supply and Cotteray Construction. Some others helped us put that thing together and it may be the most popular place on campus. Every night it seems there are parents or kids that are out there swinging and just enjoying being together.
Speaker 1:You know I'm reminded in studies of overcoming trauma. The ability to just sit around and talk is so important, and so that area. Yes, it's fun, but it also lets folks come out there and visit and unpack all that they've gone through.
Speaker 2:We've said that that fire pit is therapy we couldn't pay for, you know, because it really does break down walls and immediately it breaks down defenses and people just begin to open up their hearts and share with each other. A lot of tears are shed around that place, but they're healing tears, it's good.
Speaker 1:And so folks that can build things. You just never know how you might be a blessing. You don't necessarily have to be a house parent. There are lots of ways that you can give. Let's talk a little bit about the future of Homes of Hope. I know we've got several houses out there. Do you have any vision of the next step and where we might go?
Speaker 2:We absolutely do. We're working on a master plan with our board. In our next meeting We'll really spend some time talking about that. The next two buildings on campus that we want to do one is an open-air pavilion that could be used for all kinds of different things, but particularly for our farmer's market, and then a chapel. We want to build a chapel on campus, not to have church there the house families go to church together but we want to do discipleship. We've talked about doing Bible studies, a place to gather and pray, a place to do lots of different things from a spiritual learning experience, and so we want a chapel just right in the heart of campus. But we also have plans for building additional cottages, expanding the ministry and reaching more and more kids and doing all that we can to help there. And so, yeah, on the 42 acres, the overall master plan is just to continue to expand and to reach as many kids as we can and to sow as many seeds of hope as we can.
Speaker 1:I love that. Now let's talk about some hope stories. I know I've heard you tell a few and they bring me to tears, and so just tell us a few, an idea of just how God is working at Homes of Hope.
Speaker 2:A couple come to mind. Almost every time I start to talk about it I do cry and my kids have said Dad, you're getting leaky in your old age. You know your eyes are often filled with tears. We have a young girl that's in college right now. She is in one of the apartments. Her story is amazing. She had been really far behind in school because she had undiagnosed dyslexia. They were able to get her specific help and here's the quote she said when I got here I struggled with confidence, I struggled to read, and now I can't put books down and I just love that. She is confident and she's growing and stepping onto a college campus has just been amazing for her.
Speaker 2:We have another family that we've been working with to regain custody of their son. In the middle of that there was just a lot of struggle. They were still just wrestling through some things. They said we can't afford to file to regain custody and so we worked it out with the local attorney to file on their behalf pro bono, and so we're working through that process. Well, the dad called and his truck engine had blown up and he said no judge in the world is going to let us have him back if we can't safely get him to school and to the doctor or I can't go to work. And one of our house parents took time to look for solutions and they had a minivan in their extended family that they brought back and they put new tires on it and they fixed it up and they cleaned it up and they were going to give it to the family. Well, they did, but before they did, it was parked at their cottage for about a week and there were a couple of times that that young man was just sitting out there in that van and when they found that, they realized that this is more than transportation. It's hope. It's a picture of hope to him. This is an opportunity for his family to get back together and that's what we want.
Speaker 2:I say that not all heroes wear capes. Well, our house parents are superheroes. That's the kind of heart these people have. They just want to help the kids in whatever way they can. There's a lot of misinformation about a place like ours. People think, well, they're going to get money for every kid that comes, so they just want more kids. No, we actually reduce the total census of kids so that we could care deeply about the ones that are there. We want to make a real difference. We don't want to just be babysitting, we don't want to just be moving them forward. Like you said, if they're not transitioning well, then there's a lot of risky behaviors and even a lot of danger ahead in their future, and we want to set them up as a springboard for success. One more We've talked a lot with our juniors and seniors, the older kids, and one of them said basically these words I'm paraphrasing, but I could look at my time at Homes of Hope as an obstacle.
Speaker 2:Just say you know, I was dealt a bad hand in life and I had to go to this children's home Because of that. I would have a ready-made excuse for the rest of my life to say, well, this is why I can't. Or I could look at this as an opportunity and say, instead of I had to go, they say I got to go to the homes of hope and while I was there, god gave me an incredible opportunity to learn responsibility and hard work. And now, instead of an obstacle, it's an opportunity to be a springboard into successful adult life and I just love that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. We want to grow healthy kids. God blesses us, so then we can be a blessing to others. And I think that's just so important for us to remember Now. The campus itself. Folks can come out there and visit that. How would one get engaged in helping at Homes of Hope?
Speaker 2:Well, the best way is not for them just to come and knock on the front door, on the gate. They certainly can drive onto campus, push the call button and come to the office, which is directly in the front. But if they called the office and I can leave the number, we can probably leave that in the show notes, I guess, of your podcast, but it's 769-456-7021. Or if they just want to email me, it's scott at homesofhopems and I would love for them to email me directly. We can line up a time for them to come and tour. Again, we can just spend time talking to them.
Speaker 2:We bring a lot of folks out during the school year during the day, and that way we don't have to go through all of the. You know the rigor of background. It just creates safety and space for them. They can tour a cottage. Kids are at school and they can meet house parents. The house parents work during the day right there. That's their full-time job and so they can come and meet the house parents. We can find out what gifts, abilities and passions they have and maybe find a place to volunteer. So yeah, so they can call us or email us and we'd love to connect.
Speaker 1:Now you also are available to talk to churches. You're still a preacher right. So I come from a long line of preachers. I know you're always willing to step into a pulpit when you're a preacher, so you have availability for churches and you go and share with them. Is that right?
Speaker 2:I do, I've spoken in a lot of churches. We invite Sunday school classes and small groups onto the campus and we'll provide lunch for them if they do that. But yeah, I preach in civic organizations Rotary and Kiwanis and that kind of thing and so these days I'm preaching in a lot of different places and at some level I'm preaching more now than I did before as a pastor, because I'm preaching three and four times a week. When I start doing things during the week revivals and that kind of thing, but also sharing the story of Homes of Hope so it's a blast.
Speaker 1:It's important that we remember these are our kids. These kids are Mississippi kids. God calls us to take care of children in particular right, absolutely, absolutely Well.
Speaker 2:In fact, it says there in James that real true religion is to meet the needs of orphans and widows in their time of distress. And so we want to take care of the vulnerable. We want to be a voice for the voiceless, we want to be stability for those that are at risk.
Speaker 1:I love that verse that talks about when we do it unto the least of these. It's as though we did it to Christ, and so that's how I think of Homes of Hope that we really are being God's hands and feet to love on these kids and make a difference. I'm very blessed to be a part of the board. I can't wait to see all the great things that are going to be accomplished under your leadership.
Speaker 2:Thank you. We are overwhelmingly honored to have you on the board with us and serving with your expertise and your experience, but also just your heart, for these kids and for the state of Mississippi. And you and I share a common passion to see hope rise. We want to see kids that see the future bright. The windshield is bigger than the rearview mirror and we want them to see that way. We want them to look forward with an anticipation that there's hope ahead.
Speaker 1:So there you have it, folks, you can pray for Homes of Hope, you can participate and you can provide the three Ps. The Good Baptist, on hearing this, will appreciate the three Ps.
Speaker 2:Amen.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks so much. Y'all have a great day. Thanks for joining me, scott. Thank you so much. Y'all have a great day, thanks for joining me, Scott.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much when you need some hope and inspiration To build collaboration.
Speaker 1:Hope Mississippi is your salvation. Hope Mississippi.
.png)
.png)
