Hitman Talks to Shannon Murphy of Agape Ranch (PSA)

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Episode Transcript

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Corpus Christie's classic hits Big ninety threenine. Hey, what's going on?
It's hit Man with you and Ihave Shannon Murphy, who's the community relations
director for a Goppy Ranch with meright now. How are you? I'm
great, Thanks for having me.Now. May is a very special month
for Goppy Ranch, right, tellme a little bit about it. So,
May's Foster Care Awareness Month. It'sactually a national month to recognize foster

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children and anyone else that supports fosterchildren. Yeah, so we have it's
a really big month for us.We have a lot of awareness events going
on. We have an adoption eventthat we have coming up, and just
a lot of things out in thecommunity. So we're just trying to bring
awareness to foster care and how ourcommunity can support. And you guys are

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going to be doing something very soonalso with the Corpus Christie Hooks. Right.
Yes, we have been selected forthe fifty fifty Raffle the Hooks all
next the first week of May.So if you're at the Hooks, please
contribute. You get a chance towin yourself and you're supporting got Bay Ranch
right right now, tell us alittle bit about a Gopy Ranch in general,

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tell us a little bit more aboutthat. I mean, if people
want to, people can volunteer forthis or yes, tell us a little
bit about that. So, agot By Ranch is a nonprofit here in
the Coastal Bend. We've been servingfoster families and foster children since twenty fourteen.
We have numerous programs and we alsoare building a neighborhood where foster children

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and foster families can live together.So as far as volunteer opportunities, we
just had a bed build event lastweekend. They built fifteen beds. We
had about forty volunteers. We haveanother one coming up in May, and
then we've got coffee Sleeves of support. That is something that we're doing with

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a bunch of coffee shops here inthe Coastal Bend. So if you're out
buying a cup of coffee starting thesecond week of May, it's going to
have a special sleeve on the cupand you'll you can click on the QR
code and learn more on how youcan support foster kids here in the Coastal
Bend. Wow, that's great.Yeah, that's really cool. Now,
if people want to find out moredetails online, do you have a website

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we do. It's a gotp Aranch dot org, agape ranch dot org.
Always tell people the easiest way tofind out what's going on is sign
up for our newsletter. It goesout once a month. But if we
are in need of volunteers, forexample that bed build, we need to
volunteers. We always need volunteers.For Foster Parent Night Out, we do

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that. I think we started doingit. We've increased it a couple more
times. I think it's about sixtimes a year now. That's one of
our foster parents most favorite events,is basically a night out, so they
bring their kids, biological and fosterkids. We set it up at different
locations around the city and the fosterparents can go have a date night or

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just go home and take a nap, whatever they need. Right, So,
the reason that got by Ranch reallyexists is number one, we want
all these kids to feel unconditional love. Many of them come from trauma and
they feel unlovable and we need themto know that someone cares about them.

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And we do that, you know, either through our respie care program.
We do that through Foster Parent NightOut. We do that at our adoption
event. You know, we haveabout sixty kids coming to our adoption event
in May that are looking for foreverhomes. So we are asking our community
to be in prayer for those children. You know, their ages range from

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ten to sixteen years old. That'sa really tough age when you're looking for,
you know, to adopt and wonderingis there going to be a family
that's going to pick me? Wow, So just be in prayer for these
kids. Someone is out there forthem. And even if it's not our
event, we just hope that it'sanother event this year so these kids can
find their forever family. Now,you can sign up for the net letter

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on the website right absolutely, soyou go to got By Ranch or sign
up for the newsletter. The newsletterwill let you know what events we have
coming up. It'll definitely whenever we'rein dire need of volunteers, we definitely
send an email out we're looking forvolunteers. We have a five K every
February, we always need volunteers forthat. We have a big gala in

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September. We're looking for sponsors.If you just want to buy individual tickets,
just you know, there's just somany ways that you can support.
I always say, we kind ofhave, like, you know, the
low level commitment, which is amonetary donation, right, and then a
high level commitment is maybe you've beenthinking about being a foster parent and you

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don't really know what the next stepsare. So I encourage you to go
to our website learn more about howyou can support them as a respite care
provider, as a volunteer. Andif you think you might want to be
a foster parent, then we haveseveral agencies in town. Many of them
have informational meetings ten one just nocommitment. Just go check it out,

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see what it's about, and youmight, you know, you might be
taking that next step that a fosterkid really needs a loving home to be
in. Okay, so give usthe website one more time, a gop
a ranch dot org. So that'sag ape ranch dot org. Now you
guys also are on social media,right, Yes, we're on Facebook and
on Instagram. And a little bitabout the neighborhood that we're building. It's

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going to have up to twenty fourhomes. It's a gated community. The
idea behind that started because a lotof sibling groups get separated. Right,
If you can imagine you're in afamily three or four siblings, but you
don't all fit at the same fosterhome, right, So sometimes these kids
get sent out to different cities,so they don't really get to see their

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siblings. So the idea, thedream about this neighborhood is even if they're
not in the same house, maybethere are two houses down or across the
street. So this neighborhood will haveup to twenty four homes. It can
have up to one hundred and thirtytwo kids at any time. We have
a couple of homes set aside foraged out youth, so kids at age

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out of the foster care system.We have some homes for the respite care
providers, so you'll have respite careon site, you know, maybe your
brother's sister across the street from you. And then we even have you know,
the homes for the kids at ageof foster care. So that is
going to take some time to build, but it's happening and we're really glad

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to be able to make that happenhere in the Coastal Bend. That is
so cool. Like again, ifyou want to find out more details,
you can always check it out ontheir website. They'll probably also have it
on Facebook and Instagram, and ofcourse sign up for the net letter.
That'd be great. You can alwayssee see monthly updates on what's going on
at a gopy ranch. Well,thanks a lot for coming in today and
appreciate you taking the time. Asof course, May is a special month

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if you want to find out moredetails. What's the website again, gotpe
ranch dot org. All right,there we go on the way. We
got more music coming up and justa little bit on Big ninety three nine