July 9, 2024 • 17 mins
Advocacy in Motion Red River - In this episode, we highlight the House of Eli, a nonprofit organization in Denison, Texas, dedicated to providing a supportive home and resources for young men aging out of foster care. Learn about their mission and the profound impact they have on the community. Proudly sponsored by Niagara Water Conservation Company, we share the inspiring efforts of local nonprofits.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:09):
Welcome to Advocacy in Motion. Weare here at the wonderful podcast on Main
Studios in downtown Dennison to give avision and a voice to nonprofit organizations making
a difference in the Sherman Dennison communities. And before I introduce my first guest,
I want to say thank you toour presenting sponsor, Niagara Corporation.
Niagara is the leading manufacturer and distributorof water saving money saving plumbing products and
(00:35):
they have been a supporter of ourshow for over two years now and they
will continue to allow us to talkto nonprofit organizations here in the Dennison area
over the summer. So we wantto thank Niagara for their continued support.
My guest today is Laura Ayers.She is the co director of House of
Eli in Sherman. Welcome, thankyou, thank you, and look at
(01:00):
your websites and looking about the Houseof Eli, I was learning about it
and as I mentioned before, you'veencompassed so much. I was really impressed
with the depth of services you have. And it says here that on your
website young men a place to callhome while being providing services for independent living
(01:21):
to become healthy adults within a christcentered environment. Yes, so very much
the overview of your statement, Yes, yes it is. It is.
We House of e Lia is aboutnine years old, so this fall will
be nine years old, and we'vetried to develop a program that really targets
and helps young men that are comingout of the juvenile justice system, foster
(01:42):
care, or who are homeless forjust a myriad of reasons. Maybe some
things with their families didn't work growingup, and they're just kind of out
there and they don't know exactly whatto do and don't have a lot of
support. Okay, and how isit? How is it developed? Who?
I know Tony Hidges that one ofthe co founders and co directors.
How did this become about? SoTawny and Brad, Brad's her husband.
(02:07):
They had three boys, and theirboys were always bringing home young men that
needed help that didn't have any youknow, any place to go, especially
when they got into high school,and they ended up fostering five young men
in their home and then adopting thelast of their foster children. So Franklin
(02:31):
is their adopted son. They fromthat experience, Tawny got involved in the
Grayson County boot Camp, which isout at parent airfield and it is a
state school for young men who areincarcerated, and she became involved in their
church services, and then she wasa designer decorator, quitter decorating business,
(02:54):
went back, got her master's degreeand opened House of Eli because she's a
lot of the young men who wereat the boot camp got a measure of
help. They got healthier, theywere taught to make better choices, and
then they were kind of sent rightback into the same environment because there wasn't
anywhere else for them to go,and then they would fail and end up
(03:15):
right back in the boot camp.So the original design was to interrupt that
cycle for acidivism. Okay, hadyou get involved, where's your background with
them? So my husband and Ihave always mentored young people, and I
was a teacher and educator for abouttwenty years and I heard Tawny speak at
(03:37):
our church and I was just instantlyconnected right after she opened and I offered
my tutoring services and nothing ever materializedfor about a year. I ended up
getting reconnected with Tawny over a studentthat I had in my classroom and ended
up volunteering. I started as avolunteer at the boot camp as well in
twenty seventeen, and then was hiredas operations director of how Savilla in twenty
(04:01):
eighteen. So I've been there forthe last six years. Okay, you
mentioned the boot camp a couple times. Don't tell us about that. What
is that? So that is astate school basically, it's it is a
detention center for young men who havebeen arrested. My very first day at
the boot camp, I walked inand we used to be able to do
(04:21):
a church of us on Wednesday nights. How Savili ran that and had a
small group out there. You coulddo a small group, so the boys
would kid, you could talk tothem in groups of like four or five.
And the very first day I wasout there, I was nervous,
had never volunteered in a situation likethat before. And I saw this little
(04:43):
blonde headed kid and I just walkedover to him, and you know,
it was at the beginning of theservice, and I said, you know,
struck up a conversation and I said, are you nervous? And he
said, this is my first dayhere, miss, and he said,
I'm scared to death. He wastwelve. Oh my, and it just
breaks my heart that kids don't feellike that they have a choice sometimes in
(05:04):
what they do and where they areand how they live, and that they
get into trouble because they get angry, and that really starts. I saw
that as a teacher. You know, I taught in a small school,
so I saw kids coming from prek up and by the time they would
be middle school, some of them, especially the boys, would just be
(05:25):
so angry at life circumstances. Andyou might have a coach, You had
some good teachers that would pour intothese kids, but some of them would
go out and you know, they'dstart kind of getting in a little bit
of trouble, just being rebellious,and then one thing would lead to another,
and before you know it, they'rein a situation where they're incarcerated.
And that's a hard cycle once youget into it to break out of.
(05:48):
So it's a correct to say thatfrom that cycle of incarceration, you're sort
of the bridge to adulthood or yes, being responsible. Correct. So originally
our mission was incarceration to stop themfrom progressing into the adult system. So
(06:12):
what House of Ellies designed to do. We have a main transitional living facility.
We can house thirteen. So whenI started we were able to take
nine, now we can take thirteenand it's immersive. It's a twelve to
eighteen month intensive program. We providesafe housing, educational opportunities. We teach
(06:33):
some financial planning and management. Wehave counseling services, medical assessments. We
partner with a local dentist, anorthodonist. They're so kind to take care
of some of the things that theguys have never you know, they've never
had the funds to have some ofthose needs met, and so we meet
(06:54):
all of those needs. We areeffectively a parenting staff. We have to
go back and you want to reteachand reparent and give teach skills that maybe
they didn't get growing up. Andthen five years ago we also started our
vocational training program because we were sendingguys out into the community and then we
(07:16):
would have employers call us and go, you send us a guy that didn't
know how to wash a car,and we were like, he's lived in
a car, he's been in jail, or he's been in the foster care
system. So that's been a real, real need as well. And you
know, the older youth sometimes there'sjust not foster families that will host older
youth. They don't have a placementfor them. It's really hard, and
(07:38):
so they kind of get passed aroundfor emplacement to placement as they can.
And so we take kids like thatand they're smart, they're capable, they
just haven't had the life experiences thatyou know, your children would have had
our mind, and so we aretrying to go back and give them those
experiences. But we're sending them outin the community to work, and they
(07:59):
could do it. They might work, you know, three or four weeks
and get fired or go, oh, this job is you know, I
don't want to do this job,not really having kind of those skills necessary
to meet a deadline, to beon time, to go to work prepared.
So we started a house flipping program. So Tawny again put her skills
(08:22):
as a designer to work and wecan evince Starboard to let us buy our
first home and we hired a supervisorand to date, I think we flipped
about sixteen houses in the last fiveyears. Our guys work with men.
That's where they learn to be men. They need mentorships, they need they
need men to show them the skillsso they might learn flooring, tile paint,
(08:45):
how to run you know, cuttrim, just skills that they can
use for a lifetime to be ontime, meet a deadline. What excellent
work looks like. We also runlandscaping program. We can do moves,
we do demos, we do trashhal offs, we do a variety of
things. And then whist October,we started a store in downtown Sherman.
(09:09):
It's called Still Charming and you canfind information on that it's still Charming dot
com. And that's where the boysare learning customer service skills, computer skills,
so they also work in the store. So not only you're teaching these
skills, but actually put in practicaluse. And I just noticed that the
Eli brothers family business. Is thiswhat we're talking about. Yes, people
(09:33):
can actually hire, Yes, someof these young men to do work.
We'll come back this many times,but tell us again how people can get
in touch with your website or emailor whatever. It's House of Eli dot
net or you can reach us atadmin at House of Eli dot net and
our office number nine O three sevenseven one four three three nine. Okay,
(09:54):
well, very again, and we'll, like I said, we'll come
back to that. Make sure peoplewill see that. What about some of
the other programs you have. Iknow there's some depth there that we haven't
talked about. I say, Inoticed some men's mentoring program. How does
that work? Is that kind ofwhat we talked about of them and teaching
the skills and that sort of thing. So it is that, but it's
(10:16):
also coming in and spending time withthem. We love it when we can
pair our guys up with a mentorjust for them. They need men.
Many of our guys have grown upwith a grandmother maybe who tried to raise
them or you know, help themin some way, but many of their
(10:39):
fathers have been missing in action,and so whether that their parents are in
jail sometimes more and more often it'sboth parents that have had, you know,
trouble with incarceration or addiction. Justnot a lot of positive mail room
models in their lives. And sothat's what we try to do, is
provide that. We had a fatherson combination work for us for a couple
(11:05):
of years and they were great.But the dad's still a part of Eli's
name is Steve, but he comesin and he mentors the guys. But
he came in one time and hewas talking to his son and he gave
his son a hug before he left, and one of the guys came up
and it was a genuine question.He goes, why does he do that?
And I was confused. I waslike, what do you mean,
(11:28):
what does he do that? Dowhat? And he goes, why does
he hug him? And I go, well, that's his son, and
he goes so, and I go, you're supposed to hug your children.
And he didn't get it because hehad never had that experience with his father
at all, or any adult male. It had been an abusive situation,
and he didn't understand that that wasaffection and that that was how you show
(11:50):
love and care. So having thosethings demonstrated, that's why we say that
were the elive family. When theycome in. Our guys come in as
cousins, and then as they progressedto the program, they became brothers,
big brothers, uncles, and wewant to teach them mentoring as well,
(12:11):
how to give back, how tohelp the other guys who are coming in
and maybe starting where they were atat the beginning of the program, because
we feel like that family relationship,learning how to make healthy connections is so
important, and we work together ina family business, just like you know,
(12:31):
people used to be on the familyfarm together. Everybody was together all
the time. We work with ourguys. You might you will find,
you know, Tawny helping them learnelements of design on a house or or
painting a wall. Sometimes yesterday shewas painting at the store, teaching painting
skills. I go out on landscapinga lot of times and show them how
(12:52):
to design a flower bed. OrWe've had guys who come in and they
didn't really know how to use ashovel, So how do you It starts
with how do you use the shovel? What kind of tool do you need
for that job? Because they've neverhad any experience with those kinds of things.
I think often we overlook the verybasics. Yes, you know,
like I said of the hug,that just don't realize. People don't know
(13:15):
that they're in different situations. AndI think, you know, you guys
are doing a great job of understandingthat and getting down to those basics of
a hug or a shovel. Youknow, I think that's that's really what
is needed. How can we helphow can the community help you? What
do you need? I know innonprofit organizations, fundraising is always an issue.
(13:37):
Are volunteers, how can how canthe public help you? Well,
it's always an issue to try tokeep the doors open and make sure that
we're providing what we need to provide. Fundraising. I wish we didn't have
to do it, but but it'syou have to. We have to.
We have to. Everybody understands justgoing online to hou Savilla dot net and
(14:00):
maybe considering becoming a monthly donor.I mean twenty five dollars a month.
If you had one hundred people goingthere and do twenty five dollars a month,
I mean every little thing ten dollarsa month. A lot of times,
if there is an organization or achurch in the summer that's willing to
do a Christmas in July and getpepper, towles, laundry, soap,
(14:20):
those kinds of things, then wedon't have to raise funds to buy those
essentials. We have people who verykindly drop off, you know, hamburger
meat, or you know, they'llsay, here, let me provide you
a Walmart card for one hundred dollarsfor groceries. Those kinds of things are
fabulous because when you have thirteen boys, they can eat a lot, so
(14:46):
so any of those kinds of thingswould help. And the same thing with
volunteers. We have a form onlinethat you can fill out right now.
I'm looking for someone to help inthe office four or five hours a week
and then to kind of assist arenutritionists with some basic cooking and cleaning and
some things like that, and wealways need men to mentor where are you
(15:07):
located? Yeah, I know you'rein Sherman. So we're at one two
three South Ricketts Street in Sherman.That's our transitional living facility. Okay,
in the store, where is itlocated. It's one twenty five North Travis
and Sherman, so downtown Sherman andthe stores open Wednesday, Thursday, and
Friday from ten to five and Saturdaysten to four. Okay, we've talked
(15:30):
about a lot of things here,but what if I missed What would you
like to add and what can youlike to tell us that we haven't talked
about. These are amazing kids.They're amazing kids, and it is the
kids that don't have any options.And we think that this is a big
city problem sometimes and it isn't.We have kids in need in our community
(15:52):
that are failing because they haven't hadthe support that they've needed. And we
have a structure and a support systemand they can succeed. It's not impossible.
So just getting the word out andletting people know that we're here for
kids who you know, maybe theysee somebody couch surfing and they're like,
(16:14):
oh, that's a great kid,but he's kind of just wondering around.
Give us a call, let usknow if you encounter somebody that's in the
community and you think we can help. Oh, that's great, that's great,
and us Before we go, Ijust want to thank Niagara again.
We mentioned their contributions to nonprofit organizationsof their money saving plumbing products, but
Niagre is also innovator in bathroom hygiene. If you rate upgrade your bathroom hygiene
(16:41):
experiences, check out the new NiagaraHydrotech A day's seat. You can get
your today on Amazon because Niagara hassaved you a seat. So I want
to thank Niagara again and thank youso much Laura for joining us and sharing
your story with the great work youguys are doing, and tell us one
more time how to get in touch, how to help. We want to
(17:03):
make sure everybody knows it. Geta house Avila dot net. Our email
information is on there. You canfill out a contact form or you can
call us in the office at nineO three seven seven one four three nine.
Wonderful and we really appreciate what youguys are doing in the community.
Thank you so much. Thank youfor having us all right
Welcome to Advocacy in Motion. Weare here at the wonderful podcast on Main
Studios in downtown Dennison to give avision and a voice to nonprofit organizations making
a difference in the Sherman Dennison communities. And before I introduce my first guest,
I want to say thank you toour presenting sponsor, Niagara Corporation.
Niagara is the leading manufacturer and distributorof water saving money saving plumbing products and
(00:35):
they have been a supporter of ourshow for over two years now and they
will continue to allow us to talkto nonprofit organizations here in the Dennison area
over the summer. So we wantto thank Niagara for their continued support.
My guest today is Laura Ayers.She is the co director of House of
Eli in Sherman. Welcome, thankyou, thank you, and look at
(01:00):
your websites and looking about the Houseof Eli, I was learning about it
and as I mentioned before, you'veencompassed so much. I was really impressed
with the depth of services you have. And it says here that on your
website young men a place to callhome while being providing services for independent living
(01:21):
to become healthy adults within a christcentered environment. Yes, so very much
the overview of your statement, Yes, yes it is. It is.
We House of e Lia is aboutnine years old, so this fall will
be nine years old, and we'vetried to develop a program that really targets
and helps young men that are comingout of the juvenile justice system, foster
(01:42):
care, or who are homeless forjust a myriad of reasons. Maybe some
things with their families didn't work growingup, and they're just kind of out
there and they don't know exactly whatto do and don't have a lot of
support. Okay, and how isit? How is it developed? Who?
I know Tony Hidges that one ofthe co founders and co directors.
How did this become about? SoTawny and Brad, Brad's her husband.
(02:07):
They had three boys, and theirboys were always bringing home young men that
needed help that didn't have any youknow, any place to go, especially
when they got into high school,and they ended up fostering five young men
in their home and then adopting thelast of their foster children. So Franklin
(02:31):
is their adopted son. They fromthat experience, Tawny got involved in the
Grayson County boot Camp, which isout at parent airfield and it is a
state school for young men who areincarcerated, and she became involved in their
church services, and then she wasa designer decorator, quitter decorating business,
(02:54):
went back, got her master's degreeand opened House of Eli because she's a
lot of the young men who wereat the boot camp got a measure of
help. They got healthier, theywere taught to make better choices, and
then they were kind of sent rightback into the same environment because there wasn't
anywhere else for them to go,and then they would fail and end up
(03:15):
right back in the boot camp.So the original design was to interrupt that
cycle for acidivism. Okay, hadyou get involved, where's your background with
them? So my husband and Ihave always mentored young people, and I
was a teacher and educator for abouttwenty years and I heard Tawny speak at
(03:37):
our church and I was just instantlyconnected right after she opened and I offered
my tutoring services and nothing ever materializedfor about a year. I ended up
getting reconnected with Tawny over a studentthat I had in my classroom and ended
up volunteering. I started as avolunteer at the boot camp as well in
twenty seventeen, and then was hiredas operations director of how Savilla in twenty
(04:01):
eighteen. So I've been there forthe last six years. Okay, you
mentioned the boot camp a couple times. Don't tell us about that. What
is that? So that is astate school basically, it's it is a
detention center for young men who havebeen arrested. My very first day at
the boot camp, I walked inand we used to be able to do
(04:21):
a church of us on Wednesday nights. How Savili ran that and had a
small group out there. You coulddo a small group, so the boys
would kid, you could talk tothem in groups of like four or five.
And the very first day I wasout there, I was nervous,
had never volunteered in a situation likethat before. And I saw this little
(04:43):
blonde headed kid and I just walkedover to him, and you know,
it was at the beginning of theservice, and I said, you know,
struck up a conversation and I said, are you nervous? And he
said, this is my first dayhere, miss, and he said,
I'm scared to death. He wastwelve. Oh my, and it just
breaks my heart that kids don't feellike that they have a choice sometimes in
(05:04):
what they do and where they areand how they live, and that they
get into trouble because they get angry, and that really starts. I saw
that as a teacher. You know, I taught in a small school,
so I saw kids coming from prek up and by the time they would
be middle school, some of them, especially the boys, would just be
(05:25):
so angry at life circumstances. Andyou might have a coach, You had
some good teachers that would pour intothese kids, but some of them would
go out and you know, they'dstart kind of getting in a little bit
of trouble, just being rebellious,and then one thing would lead to another,
and before you know it, they'rein a situation where they're incarcerated.
And that's a hard cycle once youget into it to break out of.
(05:48):
So it's a correct to say thatfrom that cycle of incarceration, you're sort
of the bridge to adulthood or yes, being responsible. Correct. So originally
our mission was incarceration to stop themfrom progressing into the adult system. So
(06:12):
what House of Ellies designed to do. We have a main transitional living facility.
We can house thirteen. So whenI started we were able to take
nine, now we can take thirteenand it's immersive. It's a twelve to
eighteen month intensive program. We providesafe housing, educational opportunities. We teach
(06:33):
some financial planning and management. Wehave counseling services, medical assessments. We
partner with a local dentist, anorthodonist. They're so kind to take care
of some of the things that theguys have never you know, they've never
had the funds to have some ofthose needs met, and so we meet
(06:54):
all of those needs. We areeffectively a parenting staff. We have to
go back and you want to reteachand reparent and give teach skills that maybe
they didn't get growing up. Andthen five years ago we also started our
vocational training program because we were sendingguys out into the community and then we
(07:16):
would have employers call us and go, you send us a guy that didn't
know how to wash a car,and we were like, he's lived in
a car, he's been in jail, or he's been in the foster care
system. So that's been a real, real need as well. And you
know, the older youth sometimes there'sjust not foster families that will host older
youth. They don't have a placementfor them. It's really hard, and
(07:38):
so they kind of get passed aroundfor emplacement to placement as they can.
And so we take kids like thatand they're smart, they're capable, they
just haven't had the life experiences thatyou know, your children would have had
our mind, and so we aretrying to go back and give them those
experiences. But we're sending them outin the community to work, and they
(07:59):
could do it. They might work, you know, three or four weeks
and get fired or go, oh, this job is you know, I
don't want to do this job,not really having kind of those skills necessary
to meet a deadline, to beon time, to go to work prepared.
So we started a house flipping program. So Tawny again put her skills
(08:22):
as a designer to work and wecan evince Starboard to let us buy our
first home and we hired a supervisorand to date, I think we flipped
about sixteen houses in the last fiveyears. Our guys work with men.
That's where they learn to be men. They need mentorships, they need they
need men to show them the skillsso they might learn flooring, tile paint,
(08:45):
how to run you know, cuttrim, just skills that they can
use for a lifetime to be ontime, meet a deadline. What excellent
work looks like. We also runlandscaping program. We can do moves,
we do demos, we do trashhal offs, we do a variety of
things. And then whist October,we started a store in downtown Sherman.
(09:09):
It's called Still Charming and you canfind information on that it's still Charming dot
com. And that's where the boysare learning customer service skills, computer skills,
so they also work in the store. So not only you're teaching these
skills, but actually put in practicaluse. And I just noticed that the
Eli brothers family business. Is thiswhat we're talking about. Yes, people
(09:33):
can actually hire, Yes, someof these young men to do work.
We'll come back this many times,but tell us again how people can get
in touch with your website or emailor whatever. It's House of Eli dot
net or you can reach us atadmin at House of Eli dot net and
our office number nine O three sevenseven one four three three nine. Okay,
(09:54):
well, very again, and we'll, like I said, we'll come
back to that. Make sure peoplewill see that. What about some of
the other programs you have. Iknow there's some depth there that we haven't
talked about. I say, Inoticed some men's mentoring program. How does
that work? Is that kind ofwhat we talked about of them and teaching
the skills and that sort of thing. So it is that, but it's
(10:16):
also coming in and spending time withthem. We love it when we can
pair our guys up with a mentorjust for them. They need men.
Many of our guys have grown upwith a grandmother maybe who tried to raise
them or you know, help themin some way, but many of their
(10:39):
fathers have been missing in action,and so whether that their parents are in
jail sometimes more and more often it'sboth parents that have had, you know,
trouble with incarceration or addiction. Justnot a lot of positive mail room
models in their lives. And sothat's what we try to do, is
provide that. We had a fatherson combination work for us for a couple
(11:05):
of years and they were great.But the dad's still a part of Eli's
name is Steve, but he comesin and he mentors the guys. But
he came in one time and hewas talking to his son and he gave
his son a hug before he left, and one of the guys came up
and it was a genuine question.He goes, why does he do that?
And I was confused. I waslike, what do you mean,
(11:28):
what does he do that? Dowhat? And he goes, why does
he hug him? And I go, well, that's his son, and
he goes so, and I go, you're supposed to hug your children.
And he didn't get it because hehad never had that experience with his father
at all, or any adult male. It had been an abusive situation,
and he didn't understand that that wasaffection and that that was how you show
(11:50):
love and care. So having thosethings demonstrated, that's why we say that
were the elive family. When theycome in. Our guys come in as
cousins, and then as they progressedto the program, they became brothers,
big brothers, uncles, and wewant to teach them mentoring as well,
(12:11):
how to give back, how tohelp the other guys who are coming in
and maybe starting where they were atat the beginning of the program, because
we feel like that family relationship,learning how to make healthy connections is so
important, and we work together ina family business, just like you know,
(12:31):
people used to be on the familyfarm together. Everybody was together all
the time. We work with ourguys. You might you will find,
you know, Tawny helping them learnelements of design on a house or or
painting a wall. Sometimes yesterday shewas painting at the store, teaching painting
skills. I go out on landscapinga lot of times and show them how
(12:52):
to design a flower bed. OrWe've had guys who come in and they
didn't really know how to use ashovel, So how do you It starts
with how do you use the shovel? What kind of tool do you need
for that job? Because they've neverhad any experience with those kinds of things.
I think often we overlook the verybasics. Yes, you know,
like I said of the hug,that just don't realize. People don't know
(13:15):
that they're in different situations. AndI think, you know, you guys
are doing a great job of understandingthat and getting down to those basics of
a hug or a shovel. Youknow, I think that's that's really what
is needed. How can we helphow can the community help you? What
do you need? I know innonprofit organizations, fundraising is always an issue.
(13:37):
Are volunteers, how can how canthe public help you? Well,
it's always an issue to try tokeep the doors open and make sure that
we're providing what we need to provide. Fundraising. I wish we didn't have
to do it, but but it'syou have to. We have to.
We have to. Everybody understands justgoing online to hou Savilla dot net and
(14:00):
maybe considering becoming a monthly donor.I mean twenty five dollars a month.
If you had one hundred people goingthere and do twenty five dollars a month,
I mean every little thing ten dollarsa month. A lot of times,
if there is an organization or achurch in the summer that's willing to
do a Christmas in July and getpepper, towles, laundry, soap,
(14:20):
those kinds of things, then wedon't have to raise funds to buy those
essentials. We have people who verykindly drop off, you know, hamburger
meat, or you know, they'llsay, here, let me provide you
a Walmart card for one hundred dollarsfor groceries. Those kinds of things are
fabulous because when you have thirteen boys, they can eat a lot, so
(14:46):
so any of those kinds of thingswould help. And the same thing with
volunteers. We have a form onlinethat you can fill out right now.
I'm looking for someone to help inthe office four or five hours a week
and then to kind of assist arenutritionists with some basic cooking and cleaning and
some things like that, and wealways need men to mentor where are you
(15:07):
located? Yeah, I know you'rein Sherman. So we're at one two
three South Ricketts Street in Sherman.That's our transitional living facility. Okay,
in the store, where is itlocated. It's one twenty five North Travis
and Sherman, so downtown Sherman andthe stores open Wednesday, Thursday, and
Friday from ten to five and Saturdaysten to four. Okay, we've talked
(15:30):
about a lot of things here,but what if I missed What would you
like to add and what can youlike to tell us that we haven't talked
about. These are amazing kids.They're amazing kids, and it is the
kids that don't have any options.And we think that this is a big
city problem sometimes and it isn't.We have kids in need in our community
(15:52):
that are failing because they haven't hadthe support that they've needed. And we
have a structure and a support systemand they can succeed. It's not impossible.
So just getting the word out andletting people know that we're here for
kids who you know, maybe theysee somebody couch surfing and they're like,
(16:14):
oh, that's a great kid,but he's kind of just wondering around.
Give us a call, let usknow if you encounter somebody that's in the
community and you think we can help. Oh, that's great, that's great,
and us Before we go, Ijust want to thank Niagara again.
We mentioned their contributions to nonprofit organizationsof their money saving plumbing products, but
Niagre is also innovator in bathroom hygiene. If you rate upgrade your bathroom hygiene
(16:41):
experiences, check out the new NiagaraHydrotech A day's seat. You can get
your today on Amazon because Niagara hassaved you a seat. So I want
to thank Niagara again and thank youso much Laura for joining us and sharing
your story with the great work youguys are doing, and tell us one
more time how to get in touch, how to help. We want to
(17:03):
make sure everybody knows it. Geta house Avila dot net. Our email
information is on there. You canfill out a contact form or you can
call us in the office at nineO three seven seven one four three nine.
Wonderful and we really appreciate what youguys are doing in the community.
Thank you so much. Thank youfor having us all right
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