Your Impact

While at the Residential Treatment Center (RTC), Myrrah created the RTC Mustang mascot to represent foster children. In her words, “with horses and mustangs specifically, you need to build trust with them. They’re like Mustangs, they’re wild. They don’t know who’s being honest with them. They don’t know whom to trust. They’re, they’ve been broken, torn, bruised, kicked, they had been through the worst. Once you build that trust with them, they’re yours. And that horse you know, just like with kids, you know, it’s building that trust, so you can lead them where you want them to go.”

Myrrah built the foundations of her life at DePelchin. Today, she has strong boundaries and knows what a healthy relationship is. The staff helped her create trust and integrity. She named her son Nathan Cean McCandless after Cean Cotton, one of the DePelchin staff members that made a positive impact on her. Recently, she reached out to Cean and it was like no time had passed. He said he felt like a proud grandpa.

Myrrah expresses her gratitude for all of the staff members who impacted her. She specifically mentions Celeste, Cean, LaTasha, Eric, Steve and Mary Garibay. She says, “It was never the facility itself that made the difference, it was the people.” In the future, Myrrah wants to work with kids who feel hopeless. She wants to be able to tell them, “I do understand why you are feeling a certain way.”

We are sad to share that staff member Celeste Beaudoin has passed away from cancer. Myrrah expressed her disappointment that she was unable to reconnect with Celeste before her passing. Despite this, Celeste’s positive impact on Myrrah’s life will never be forgotten.

“I’m very grateful for it,” Chris shares. “Without the tools that I’ve gained from the Fatherhood Program, I wouldn’t have the life that I have with Londyn. She means everything to me.”

As an active parent, Chris shares “I take something out of every session, every week”, and says hearing from other dads has been especially beneficial.

In addition to Londyn, Chris has five older children and says “These are tools I can use for the rest of my life and for all my kids.”

In fact, your partnership helps dads just like Chris learn how to manage feelings of stress, care for their mental health and their childrens’, and much more so they can give their kids the best care possible.

Chris shares a word of thanks for donors like you who make it possible for him and many more fathers to be a part of this program.

“Lives will be changed,” he says of the program’s impact. “It’s very important to keep this program going.”

Your passion for the well-being of children and the families who support them is truly making a difference. Thank you!

“It was an easy transition — as easy as it can be to go from having no baby to having a baby the next day,” Cindy said.

Cindy is one of thousands of adults in Texas providing kinship care, in which a relative or a family friend like Cindy provides care for a child when parents are unable to do so.

Kinship care helps keep children connected to their extended families and their communities. During September, which is National Kinship Care Month, DePelchin celebrates kinship caregivers and the safe, loving homes they provide for children who need temporary care.

DePelchin serves kinship caregivers in multiple ways, such as helping kinship caregivers become licensed foster parents. For example, DePelchin staff may show the family how to demonstrate financial stability, or the staff may help the family pass a state-required inspection. DePelchin also provides kinship families with supplies, resources, and guidance they need after children enter their care suddenly.

Cindy connected with the DePelchin team after workers with the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services gave her a list of organizations she could contact for assistance, and she has leaned on DePelchin for guidance since the baby arrived in her home.

Cindy’s own family and friends have rallied around her kinship journey; her adult children and her friends love to visit the baby. She also stays close to the baby’s extended family, including his mother.