SEARCY — Beverly Ford of Searcy had extra time and love to give, so she volunteered with foster children at Searcy Children’s Homes.
The program has been renamed Sparrow’s Promise, and a wing in the renovated house at 208
E. Moore St. is named in her honor.
“It was a very big surprise,” she said. “The house has been there since ’74. I know there have been volunteers in and out of there.”
A ribbon-cutting took place Monday for the home.
One wing is the Beverly Ford Family Visit Center, where biological parents can have supervised visits with their children.
“I’m humbled and happy and very proud because I know what this is doing for foster children, and it’s all about the children,” she said.
Ford, who grew up in Campbell, Missouri, also knows what it feels like to be separated from one’s parents.
“I had some experience being separated as a child,” she said. Ford said she lived with her paternal grandparents for about
1 1/2 years, from age 7 to almost 9. In addition to her grandparents, “I had a wonderful aunt and uncle,” she said.
“I know what it means to have someone love you like you are their own. Foster families, when they get involved in a child’s life — they love them like their own,” Ford said. “That’s what they need and what it’s all about. They’re filling that gap until the real families, their biological families, can get it together. And we see success stories, and that’s wonderful.”
Ford was reunited with her mother, who had remarried.
“I know that feeling of being taken from your home, and I know that feeling of being loved by someone else, and I know that feeling of going back. So I just wanted to do my part to love [children] while they were in that situation,” she said.
She volunteered at the home after looking for something to do a few years after she retired from Harding University in Searcy. She went there to do part-time clerical work, but she ended up greeting the children in the mornings, cooking their lunches and staying until they left for the day.
She also volunteers at least once a week with The Sharing Shoppe, a thrift shop in which donated items are sold, with all the proceeds going to the program. Searcy Children’s Homes started in 1974 and is affiliated with the Churches of Christ.
Executive Director Brandon Tittle, previously assistant dean of students at Harding University, started July 2018 in the position.
He said the program changed its name to “better reflect the services we currently provide to children and families.”
Tittle said, “Matthew 10:29 states that even a sparrow won’t fall to the ground outside of the father’s care, and are we not more valuable than sparrows?”
“That’s where the vision came for the name,” he said. “We want to share that promise with everyone we meet — that we are valuable, we are loved and that God truly cares for us.
“We’re an independent nonprofit, but we’re supported by private donors, and we have a number of churches that support us. About four years ago, they decided to move all the children out of the group home and do all foster care. It was a good decision. That’s kind of the trend, and it’s going to be happening all over the state,” he said.
“Our focus is, we recruit, train and serve foster families. … We are completely responsible for our foster families; we’re actually a private placement agency. The state will place children with us, and we’ll place through our families.”
Tittle said program representatives go into local churches to talk to their members about being foster families and volunteering.
“We serve, right now, between 40 and 60 [foster children] a year,” he said.
“If people want to get involved, it costs money to do this, so we’re always looking for ongoing support. We have an Amazon wish list that’s up with the final things we’re asking for help with.”
He said there are four main components to Sparrow’s Promise:
“The visit center itself — we will begin hosting supervised visits that parents and their children do when their kids are in foster care. Right now, they go to a restaurant to do that, or they go to a [Department of Human Services] office. Neither one is productive to visitation,” Tittle said.
Ford said the rooms are “furnished gorgeously” and planned to the smallest detail.
“Amy Cox, [assistant professor of art] at Harding, has researched what’s best for visits and what colors … and what pieces of furniture should be in the room … and what toys,” Ford said.
“There’s a small kitchen, and we’ll keep it stocked with items that need to be there. They may make cookies together or sandwiches together, or popcorn,” she said.
Tittle said the homelike atmosphere will help children and families reconnect, “and, hopefully, help in the reunification process.”
Sparrow’s Promise also includes Donnie and Hilda Clay Safe Haven, a wing named for the original houseparents in 1974. Hilda is still alive, but her husband is deceased, Tittle said.
“We’re honoring them with the safe haven [area] that DHS will have access to 24/7,” Tittle said.
When children are removed from a home — and often that’s in the middle of the night — they are taken to the Department of Human Services office until a foster family is found, which might take several hours, he said.
“It’s a place here where they can wait till they find a family. There’s a bedroom (two total) if they need to sleep. They’re not staying here long-term,” he said.
A kitchen in that wing is “fully stocked,” and supplies such as diapers are available.
The home includes a classroom to use for training for both foster parents and biological parents.
“Long-term, we hope to have training for older foster children who are getting ready to age out and do life-skills training for them,” Tittle said.
The day of the ribbon-cutting, Ford was there, working alongside others, unpacking kitchen items and cleaning floors and bathrooms.
“They need volunteers to greet people when they come and straighten the room after visits. I’ll be there as much as I can,” she said.
She knows how important being there is.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.