Mrs. Tina is a fabulous lady. True pleasure in working with you. Thank you for being amazing. Hands of mercy has a Angel. 🙏🏻

Hey my name is lexi and I stayed at home in 2019-2020 I want to say it was the hardest year of my life my daughter was 4 months old at the time and i had no support from my family I wasn't in school because i dropped out. I was angry, depressed and scared. I used Marijuana to cope with it because at the time I felt that was the only way, allot of days I didn't want to get up out of bed, I didn't want to go to events, I didn't want to attend life skills I just wanted to be with my daughter in my room alone. With the help from house moms like Ms. Jen and her meatloaf, Mrs. Zulley and her being on me about keeping my room clean essentially keeping me out of depression Mrs. Lisa forcing me out of bed and going on walks with me, Ms.Carol Manson being my confidant and Mrs. Diane telling me to get my butt up and smell the coffee I eventually came around, my daughter was eventually put in daycare and at first I was filled with anxiety about it but that was the start to me finding individuality I started school at Marion Technical College about a week after and after about 2 months I got kicked out but with how determined Mrs. Diane was she fought for me to go back and take my G.E.D test and I passed with high scores!! Life skills was another thing that helped me tremendously and I hated going to it with a passion but I never realized how much it would help when I aged out the system I was taught how to pay bills, what credit was and how to build it, how to do cpr on children and how to cope by myself without using Marijuana amongst allot.of other things. I didn't realize it back then but they really took the time with me to teach me things my parents didn't want to teach me and they took time out of their day to talk to me and spend time with me and my daughter. Over the course of time they really became family to me in a way I never imagined, I never had a family like them and I can't count how many times I've been in Mrs. Diane's office crying, talking about being a woman with Mrs. Zulley, cooking with Mrs. Jen or doing arts and crafts and getting baby advice from Mrs. Lisa and all the girls I made friends with that helped me as if they were my daughters aunts (like christa) which was so cool because she really was raised by a group of best friends. These are all things that I took for granted because I really didn't know anything about life but being in the outside world this shiznit is HARD and through it all I've kept in contact with almost every house mom and every friend I made in H.O.M.E I aged out 3 years ago and I still need help sometimes and no matter what I they've helped me with every little step of the way. I'm 22 with 3 children now and I still don't have it figured out. Getting older or having a rough life has nothing to do with knowing how this world really is. I've grown allot since then but still struggle from time to time I even came back had dinner and slept over because life got real rocky for me at one point and I didn't know what else to do I also didn't have a car at the time an Mrs. Diane gave me a car, as well as money to catch up on bills or get groceries and when she noticed i didnt even have a purse to put it in she emptied her own purse and gave it to me. she saw a need and she met it when she didn't have to years after I aged out. Everything about H.O.M.E is about growing, family, support, and opportunity it's all there if you want it to be there these women aren't just there til you age out they're there for the rest of your life every single one of them aren't just house moms they're your mentors and for me they also became my children's grandparents and women I hold close to my heart. Please take this letter and please sit on this and please take advantage of every opportunity, get your butts up and be productive, take in as much knowledge as u can, do the right thing, love one another, be kind always, life is rough on its own without extra negativity and most importantly hold those babies tightly.

If I could give this group home 0 stars, I would. The staff were really petty, and when I would tell management about how poorly they were treating me they would excuse their behavior by telling me that “this is how life is” and “life’s not fair”. Although they repeated these phrases often (and I know these phrases are somewhat true) they also were trying to be fair in a sense as well. But when I say trying to be “fair” they were giving girls they liked more, better opportunities /privileges than others. Their method of discipline is also confusing because the punishments never relate to the child’s behaviors. (e.g. — A child walked off campus, they would give the child a punishment of -5 dollars of allowance.In this situation the punishment has no relation to the behaviors.) This placement was also dirty, full of bugs and mold! Dead roaches the size of my pinkie found in almost every corner of the room. Termites infesting rooms and bathrooms. MOLD IN THE SHOWER ROOM DUE TO LITTLE VENTILATION! I am more than aware that they knew about these thing because they tried to get exterminators and I showed them the mold! They decided not to do anything about it, which definitely shows how they treat the kids. There was a lot of favoritism although “they hated when people showed favoritism “ . They were very contradicting and even confusing when it came to rules and certain behaviors. They gaslight you and when you ask for things they bring up all your past behavior problems. I gave them my phone when I was being disciplined and they lost my phone! Another resident took it upon herself to get me a phone (and I love her so much for that). But two weeks prior to them taking my phone my sister had just bought it for 200$. And they lost it. Some of the staff were nice and some of the group homes qualities were nice but there was just too many cons. I would say some good things about this place but they never anything good to say about me. So you get what you give I guess. I wish I would’ve taken pictures but I didn’t because I was trying to be nice…