Almost 20 years ago two special little boys were born into our family. Their parents, Doug and Sally, a 3 year old sister, Julia, and grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and friends happily welcomed them. When Nick and Zack turned 3, we knew something was not right, they had started regressing instead of progressing as 3-year olds. We had them tested and received the devastating news that they were autistic.  So many questions, how, why.....ran through our minds and brought us to our knees wondering what do we do now.   We did all we knew to do, we asked God, our Heavenly Father for help and guidance in knowing how to raise these 2 boys. We had our ups and downs on a daily basis.  Raising "per se" normal kids is hard enough, but to have 2 non-verbal autistic kids was very hard and more than what we thought we could handle at times.  As we struggled, God always picked us up and gave us the love, patience and knowledge we needed.  The hardest thing we faced was communication with each boy.  With them being non-verbal and only repeating what we would say, it was hard to figure out what they wanted or needed. But as they grew, we grew with them in understanding their body language along with their personalities and attitudes.

 

Here we are now in 2022 with 2 - 19 year old young men.  Now we have to figure out the next phase in their lives, where do they live??? They have aged out of the school system and are at home all the time, with both parents working full-time and aging grandparents with health issues to care for them, so we have another problem.  We started looking to find care givers to help take care of them, which has not worked out.  We started looking in Mississippi for a home to move them to, but everything we found was already booked up with a waiting list 10 to 15 years long.  The government keeps cutting the funds for mental health and are not building new facilities to help with this problem. I, Cynthia, their grandmother and care giver started looking on line at other states and found they have the same problem that Mississippi has, no available homes.  As I was searching in other states, I learned that parents, grandparents and friends were starting a trend of building houses and a farm. The more I read about this avenue, the more I liked the idea!!!!

 

February, 2022 - I started talking with Nick's and Zack's parents and others who have special need young adult children who may need forever homes, telling them about the idea to see if they thought this was something we could do. They all became very excited about this idea and we decided to organize a non-profit organization to first buy houses and remodel them handicap accessible for up to 4 people in each house in Copiah County, Mississippi. Then next phase we will build new houses (because there is a lack of houses for sale in Copiah County and begin to build the farm setting in a later phase.

 

March 2022-present - Nick and Zack both are 20 years old now and live in a home in south MS with another resident. Sadly to say they are 3 1/2 hours away from family. They are active in their community, church, shopping, and hobbies.  RFH is about bringing them and other individuals who live away back home, where family and friends can see them on a regular basis and know they are being taken care of. 

 

RFH is about providing homes and a good protective life close to family members for many mental and physical disabled individuals, so families do not need to travel very far to see their loved ones.

 

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