Our Director’s Heart

This program comes from the hearts of so many people! God had touched our hearts long ago with the concern for the futures of at-risk youth. My husband Leroy and I thought we were making a difference as foster parents of teens, but still, we were unable to ignore the stories of lost young men and women being killed, imprisoned, and hopeless. Our own hearts were burdened with the thought that “someone should be doing something different.”  We came to realize that the “someone” was US!

That realization launched a long era of preparation – education, immersion in childcare philosophy, studying what succeeds, interviewing incarcerated juveniles – and prayer. We are amazed at what and who emerged to coalesce our dreams. God sent just the right person at just the right time, and in the right season, we were able to open our first group home with no compromises in quality or programming.

That is not to say it was easy! No, I have seen the sacrifices of time and effort that went uncompensated except for the realization that the giver shared in the ultimate end of giving real hope to hopeless young men. Leroy and I personally, and our sons faced financial devastation while we funded the first 10-bed home. But God is good, and I have seen His work on earth as the dream put into our hearts is now a reality, and the first placements are emerging from our Westridge home as young men who know someone cared for them and sacrificed for them, and they reflect that sacrifice.

And now we go where the next phase of this work takes us. A good group home is not enough; we see that putting youth into independent living apartments directly from the sheltered care of a group home is too big a gap, so we are compelled to create a training home, the PREP House, where young men and women can actually practice it.

Mrs. Ming Toy Cardwell

Executive Director and Co-Founder of Changing Lives Youth Services