HOT SPRINGS -- For almost six years, Nick Hilt and his wife, Alice, have dedicated much of their time to helping families who are starting over after a tragedy or court intervention.
The Hot Springs Village couple operate Starting Over Ministries, a nonprofit organization that assists families with basic home furnishings after they have been displaced by job loss, fire, neglect, abuse or other situations, all through the efforts of volunteers and donations from the community.
Nick Hilt said he and his wife were working cases as court-appointed special advocates from Garland County Juvenile Court and "trying to get families reunited." Parents would try to fulfill all court requirements to get their children back, including having a source of income, a place to live and a home that is properly furnished, but the latter requirement caused many of them trouble, Hilt said.
"Typically the families we were dealing with had lost everything, so we would all be running around, calling our friends, trying to get them some furniture to get things resolved," he said.
"It really put it in our heart to see what we could do to make it a better situation," Hilt said.
The couple approached Chris Hemund, then their pastor at Mountainside United Methodist Church in Hot Springs Village, for help. The church's current pastor, the Rev. DeeDee Autry, continues to help them, Hilt said, as do volunteers from Lake Valley Community Church in Hot Springs.
Hilt, 72, said he and his wife moved to Hot Springs 20 years ago. Now that he is "trying to retire" from his real estate job, Starting Over Ministries has "kind of taken over all my time," he said.
The organization has no paid employees, but it has six regular volunteers and numerous others who help at times.
Hilt said his Realtor friends contact him about clients who are remodeling and "want to get rid of all their old furniture to put new stuff in," or "someone will pass away and their family will have a Realtor sell the house and it will be full of furniture the family doesn't want, and we'll come and get it."
He said Jim Smith with Keith Smith Co. donated a warehouse that Starting Over Ministries uses to clean, sort and store the furniture. Hilt said the organization also gets help with deliveries from the young men at Teen Challenge of Arkansas.
He said the organization gets referrals for the families they help from Garland County court-appointed advocates, the Department of Human Services, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Safe Haven, Potter's Clay, Habitat for Humanity and other organizations.
Starting Over Ministries also aids families who have lost their homes to fire, and "some teachers will contact us. A teacher will see a child coming to class every day who isn't clean, and they will find out what's going on and that the family needs help."
The organization accepts donated items except for beds, which it buys new. It helps about 80 families a year, an average of two a week, and gives out 120 to 130 beds a year. The beds are funded through donations, both from private individuals and groups and organizations.
"We have a lot of churches helping us," Hilt said, and Trademark Real Estate has held a golf tournament each May for six years to fund the purchase of beds.
"You get really close to God doing this sort of thing. It continues to amaze me every day," he said. The organization recently received the Spirit of Arkansas award from KATV in Little Rock.
Metro on 05/28/2016