New house gives girls hope

Nonprofit organization to open home to help motivated children

Boys Hope Girls Hope of Nevada will soon be opening its first home for girls.

The nonprofit organization currently operates a home for boys in the valley, but a home for girls has been on the group's wish list for some time now.

Boys Hope Girls Hope operates 38 homes in 17 cities in the U.S., as well as in Brazil, Guatemala and Ireland. The organization's mission is to "help academically capable and motivated children in need to meet their full potential and become men and women for others by providing value-centered, family like homes, opportunities and education through college," according to the group's Web site. Children generally are between the ages of 10 and 14 when entering the program.

Jane Jensen Saint, executive director of the group's Nevada chapter, said she couldn't be happier about the recent acquisition of a home.

"We were given a residential house that housed 12 girls," Saint said. "It was a program that helped girls with drug and alcohol abuse problems, but they closed and sought us out last fall. It's a great neighborhood."

The girls' home will house a maximum of eight girls.

Saint said when a child and the child's parents express interest in the program, those at the organization have to be careful about who is admitted.

"The parent or guardian doesn't give up custody," she said. "And it doesn't mean that they're a bad parent, it just means that the parent doesn't have the capacity to provide for the child. Everyone has to want the program, the child and the parent. And the kids have to have the grades."

Both the boys' and the soon-to-be girls' home are set up to be just that -- a living environment that is the furthest thing from an institutional setting. That is where Blue Heron, a local homebuilder, comes in.

Tommy Isola, a principal at Blue Heron, said the kitchen in the girls' home is set up like a commercial kitchen, something they will have to redesign.

"The house itself is a good house," Isola said. "But the home has an institutional kitchen and closets. It doesn't feel like a normal home."

All children in the program, referred to as scholars, live in the homes with live-in staff members, but they can go to their family's home, if they have one, for a week in the summer, all major holidays and one weekend per month.

And a "normal home" is what the organization wants, and Isola and Blue Heron will do what they can to help.

"What immediately attracted me to Boys Hope Girls Hope is that I share a lot of the same experiences with these kids," he said. "They go to St. Viators and Bishop Gorman, and so did I. And they are just the sweetest kids, they're really great."

Both St. Viator Parish School and Bishop Gorman High School provide scholarships to children at the organization.

Boys Hope Girls Hope was started by a Jesuit priest in St. Louis in 1977, and the organization does promote faith, but Catholicism is not pushed.

"We do have that faith-based component," Saint said. "They do have to attend a religious service each week, but they can chose where they want to go. We have a couple of kids right now that don't know where they want to attend, so they pick a different church each week.

"Our end focus is for them to become men and women for others, with respect for the outside world."

For more information, visit www.boyshopegirlshope.org.