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| The Home with a Heart |
I spent 8+ years with an amazing group of people working with children, ages 5-12.
It's where I found out that I wanted to spend my life working with children.
It's where I found lifelong friends.
It's Hephzibah Children's Association
The Home with a Heart
Hephzibah is a residence and foster home, coupled with an incredible daycare program.
I was part of the daycare program. I started out as a staff member, became a supervisor, and eventually was a coordinator for a short time. I worked with hundreds of kids and scores of staff members.
I visited them this summer while they were at their summer program location...a nine-week stint that occurs every summer; housing hundreds of children from Oak Park in one location--Monday through Friday from 7:00 am - 6:00pm. A program that is run so well it has gained notoriety and respect in the community. I was once part of that program. It felt wonderful to step back into my old stomping ground--almost as if I had never left.
This time my family...Lindsay, Ava, Henry, and Ella were with me. I brought them to Summer Hephzibah so the kids and staff could meet them--because on August 2nd, Summer Hephzibah is sponsoring a "Walk for Ella".
I'm speechless.
A handful of people that I worked with who are still there (as well as former Hephzibah kids that I once took care of who are now staff members) will be joining kids, families, and staff members that I've never met and walking for my daughter. Walking to help show their love and concern for my family.
Little did I know 20 years ago, when I sat in the Daycare Director's office interviewing for my first real job out of college, that I would be writing a blog about how this amazing organization has been, and continues to be, an important part of my life.
Little did I know that the people I met during that first summer I worked there, as well as those I met throughout the following school years and summers, would become like family to me and to my family.
Little did I know that kids, who weren't even born when I first started working there, would be walking proud for a daughter I never knew I would have.
Little did I know.
