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THE HISTORY OF OPEN ARMS SHELTER
In October 1985, a group of concerned citizens met to address the growing problem of child abuse and neglect in central Arkansas. This group, made up of law enforcement officials, judges, school counselors and human service professionals, became known as the Lonoke County Task Force on Child Abuse and Neglect. After conducting a needs assessment, the Task Force found that the greatest need was a shelter for victims of abuse and neglect. Lonoke County had only a few foster homes at that time. Shelters in the state for children were consistently full and often had waiting lists. On September 15, 1986, Hillary Clinton cut the ribbon officially opening the Open Arms Shelter.
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The first home for Open Arms was located at 203 East Fourth Street in Lonoke. The facility began operation in 1986 with a budget of $25,000 and one full time set of house parents. With funding unavailable for new programs from the Department of Human Services, Open Arms began as a group foster home with an eight-bed capacity. We received $7.00 dollars a day for each foster child served. From 1986-1994, the Task Force and its staff provided temporary shelter to approximately 50 children a year from across the state. Because of our limited funding, we relied very heavily on community support and involvement. Most of those connections are still active today. We have received contributions from 28 county churches, 32 civic organizations, 18 school clubs, and 74 local businesses. Our connections with these groups has allowed us to teach parenting classes, give presentations, and provide educational tours to help raise local awareness of child abuse and the magnitude of its effect. |
In November 1994, the Task Force moved to into an old nursing home approximately five miles east of Lonoke on Highway 70. With more space, we were able to increase the number of children we could serve. That same year, we contracted with the Department of Human Services to provide emergency shelter services to foster children statewide. Since 1994, the full time staff at Open Arms has grown to five and is well trained and experienced in working with children. One has a Masters degree and they have over 50 years of combined experience working with children. Our budget has grown from $25,000 to $225,000. In October 2002, we moved into our new state-of-the-art facility specifically designed to meet the needs of our children. It is located at 1500 Navajo Trail in Lonoke.
| Open Arms is a private, nonprofit 501(c) 3 organization. Our mission is to provide temporary housing to victims of abuse and neglect between the ages of birth and 18 years of age. We are licensed by the Arkansas Department of Human Services’ Child Care Facility Review Board as an emergency residential facility and with our current staff we can house up to 12 children at any given time. Open Arms is opened 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. We are governed by a 15 member volunteer board which donates their time, resources, and money to the shelter. Our board members are individual community leaders from every city in our county, with one at large state member. |
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Children can reside in our program for 45 days. Open Arms is one of the few emergency shelters in the state that will take children under the age of eight, teenage mothers with their child/ren and large sibling groups. The children have come to our facility from every imaginable type of crisis. We have had children with broken limbs, bruises, and cuts due to domestic abuse. We have had children that would hide food, have never had a Christmas tree, birthday party, or seen a movie because of neglect. We have had children that are in a state of shock because of having been the victim of kidnapping, sexual abuse, or having been removed from a home during a drug bust. Often we spend a lot of time and money taking these children to the doctor, dentist, counselor, treating them for head lice, buying new clothes, going on field trips, and just sitting and watching a video without fear of any repeated trauma.
Since 1986, Open Arms has provided safe housing to over 1,800 children. Our daily average is eight and most children stay at least two weeks. Children attend public school in Lonoke, participate in weekly educational or recreational outings, have volunteered their time in the local community (nursing home and soup kitchen), and are encouraged to attend church with our staff on Sunday. We have had several personal return visits and numerous cards of appreciation from former residents, thankful for the care, kindness, and attention they were shown during their time of crisis. We have even had a few former residents that would ask for us by name during their next crisis situation, and many that were angry at being sent to our facility, but would leave crying asking if they could stay longer.
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