Yesterday afternoon I visited Hope for Opelousas around 4:30pm.   Larry Callier, ex Opelousas Chief of Police, is recovering from gall bladder surgery was with me.  Larry was instrumental in getting HFO’s youth programs started.  I wanted him to see HFO’s tutoring program in action.  All rooms of our facility were occupied with volunteer tutors and young students doing homework.  Larry was encouraged that these kids were getting a chance to succeed academically and be loved by our volunteers.  ”This is great and could be taking place all over the city.  We talked about starting this and now it is happening.”  were some of  Larry’s comments.

Over 3 years ago Hope for Opelousas was just a dream.  Today over 20 Opelousas children are tutored 3 days a week.  Many of these same children have experienced LSU and ULL football, basketball, and baseball games.  They have visited Memphis, New Orleans, Dallas, and Houston and some have climbed the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.  College students and interns from Iowa, Minnesota, Texas, and Tennessee have come to Opelousas to rebuild houses and love the people of our city.  Local volunteers are sharing their lives with children and families they have come to know through Hope for Opelousas.

“These kids have dreams like you and I had when we were young,”  Larry said yesterday.  Young people dream about a better future.  Hope for Opelousas dreams of a better future for the people of Opelousas.  We believe “Love changes everything!”  Hope for Opelousas needs your support to make dreams become reality.  Many of you have supported Hope for Opelousas from its inception, many, many thanks to you.  Some of you are only now hearing of Hope for Opelousas.  I ask all of you to pray for the people of Opelousas and for Hope for Opelousas.  I also ask you to make a financial donation to Hope for Opelousas.  I know times are tough and finances are tight.  Your prayers and financial support help put “skin on skin”, connects people to people, and makes the dream of “Love changes everything” come true.  Thanks for your time and Happy Holidays from all of us at Hope for Opelousas.

Reggie Dupre’

Board Member HFO

Do you remember the Jr. High years of life? I remember how in some ways it was social torture. Learning how to relate to peers, the opposite sex, and struggling with parents made these years very awkward.

Take those same struggles multiplied with the anxieties of one of our students:

Mom gets engaged to live-in boyfriend

Electricity turned off because can’t pay bills

Eviction notice served

Fiancé arrested for drug and possession of a weapon charge

Evicted from home

Forced to move out of his house to live with Grandmother

What do you think your GPA might be?

These issues and many we may be too frightened to think about are common place for our students. Innocence is lost at an early age for our students and life can seem very cold.

This is why the work we do at HFO is so important. “Love Changes Everything.” First of all this student will be loved through these trying times. If HFO wasn’t here this student would have no outlet to process his situation and no one to walk with him through it. Also, if HFO wasn’t here this student wouldn’t have the example and encouragement to have Hope for his future. We are advocates of Hope for the people we serve and daily we are finding ourselves being changed most by the process.

Love changes everything, even us!

AMEN

Loren Carriere

Executive Director

P.S. Thanks for your support!

If you visit the office of Jason Cohen, a well known photography talent in Lafayette, LA you will not just see beautiful art, you will also have the privilege of chatting with witty, jovial, and very generous people. You will quickly learn that photography is just one of Jason’s passions. The other is coffee, quality coffee. In the back room of his office he has installed a dual head espresso machine and he brings in gourmet coffee beans from different places. This very tasty coffee is a means to great conversation and fellowship for Jason. I asked Jason about why he decided to start Café Cohen. He said,

“The very beginnings of coffee for me was when I would go to Portland, Seattle, or New York and have fantastic coffee. Coffee that did not exist in the south, much less in Lafayette. I got tired of coming home to mediocre coffee so I decided to go out and find an espresso machine (in Dallas). Most recently I flew up to Seattle to pick up an espresso machine, a.k.a. The Beast, which now resides in Café Cohen. The real start for Café Cohen came out of more of a joke of people always calling to see if “Café Cohen” was open. From there it became a bit of an outlet to connect with people and feed a little bit of a personal passion at the same time.”

Café Cohen began as a way to have meaningful interaction with clients and people he knew. It has become a regular stop for us when we are in Lafayette. Recently Jason came up with the idea of having a donation jar. He decided that the proceeds would be given to HFO. The money is used to provide snack for our after school program. Jason has also done some photography for us and we consider him a dear friend of HFO. Thanks Jason for sharing your passions with us and turning out some amazing products, both your coffee and your photography.

God has blessed me with amazing friends. The kind of friends that are ready to pack their bags, jump on a plane, fly across the country, and dive-in to love 8 kids they’ve never met. But this adventurous spirit is common place for Benjamin Spell, a Lafayette boy who after attending photography school moved to New York City, to make it BIG!
Ben currently works with a photography firm and also does free lance work on the side. You are sure to see Ben’s work in magazines and billboards in the future. But we give you the privilege of seeing it here first!

To see more of Ben’s work check out his website:
benjaminspell.com

Tutoring has begun.  This year we have 20 students that are coming to the Hill House after school on Tues, Weds, and Thurs.  These kids are coming to work on their homework and participate in other enrichment activities that will help them in their basic reading, writing, and math skills.  We are now three weeks into tutoring and are beginning to get into a good routine.  Our hope is to get the kids to begin to take responsibility for their education by teaching them good study habits, and helping them discover their true potential.  Most of our kids are very intelligent and just need a little guidance and encouragement to get their work done.  Others struggle a little more to understand the concepts and need more one on one attention.

In order to be able to serve the kids well and get them what they need to succeed we need volunteers.  At this point we still find ourselves scrambling to make sure we have enough volunteers for each day and often have to work with a 3:1 ratio of kids to volunteers.  Ideally each tutor would have to work with 1 to 2 kids a day so the kids get the attention they need.  We have had some faithful volunteers over the years and if you were ask them about their experience with tutoring the kids their stories would be filled with blessings that they have both been able to give and receive from the kids. The kids are full of life and joy, so much so that they are hard to coral sometimes.  But most of the time they brighten your day with just a smile.

If you are interested in tutoring please call us at 337-942-7270.  We ask for our volunteers to commit to one day that they come each week, either Tues, Weds, or Thurs from 4-6pm. Please contact us if you have any questions or are interested in serving.

Blessings,

Kristina