Children’s Home Celebrates 90 years of Helping Thousands
Shante Clark started college two weeks ago with $19,000 in scholarships, an invitation to be a part of an elite choir and a plan to become a music teacher.
By Allison Rupp, Knoxville News Sentinel
It’s been a much longer journey to get there than the two hours it takes to drive from Sevierville to Lee University in Cleveland, Tenn.
Clark, 18, has been “in the system” since she was 3.
“You are taken away from everything you know,” said Clark, originally from Knoxville. “Unless someone takes you right away, you go from (foster) home to home. Sometimes you don’t feel like you fit in.”
She felt alone when she was separated from her two brothers and struggled with the adoptive mother she had been with since she was 9.
Clark came to the Church of God Smoky Mountain Children’s Home in Sevierville, first for foster care when she was 16 and then to live on campus when she was 17.
“I was discouraged when I came to the home,” Clark said. “I was at a really low point. But they helped me … by making sure I got to piano lessons. They gave me hope.”
From the fi rst four children the home took in in 1920 in Cleveland to the 170 kids it now serves daily, Smoky Mountain Children’s Home has helped thousands of kids grow into adults like Clark.
Many didn’t stand a chance of becoming successful or surviving to adulthood at all. The home serves children who have been abused, neglected, abandoned or whose needs exceed what a caregiver can provide. Children are referred to the organization by family members, pastors or government agencies because they have experienced traumatic events in their lives.
“For a majority of the kids, the parents have drifted away and a grandmother or an aunt has tried to step in, but the need of the child is greater than what they can handle,” said John Sweet, program director since 2007 and a former Church of God minister in Alcoa and foster parent.
The organization offers a continuum of care to help children heal, said Sweet, and acts as a foster care provider, facilitates adoptions, counsels families, and houses about 60 to 70 children on its 65-acre campus.
The home oversees about 110 foster care parents and has about 120 children in foster care at any time. It serves children from all over the country. About 75 percent of funding every year comes from private sources.
In 1949, the organization moved to Sevierville and into the old Lee University building.
The campus has changed a lot over 90 years as philosophies to help children have changed, Sweet said. In the 1950s and ’60s, children were housed by the hundreds in dormitories. More recently, the home built small cottages for about eight children and house parents to live in. Twelve cottages stand on campus now. The interiors
have been updated several times with big-screen televisions, hardwood floors, new appliances and spacious bedrooms.
“We teach them how to live in a family,” Sweet said. “If no one taught you how to live in a family or you never had a family, you have to learn that skill.”
They also have to teach children how to be kids again.
Besides intensive therapy, children participate in activities on and off campus to allow them to develop teamwork, self-esteem and self-control. The home has a climbing tower as well as soccer and baseball fields and a media room. The Miracle Theater in Sevierville puts on drama camps.
“What if no one applauded you and suddenly 300 to 400 people are applauding?” Sweet said. “It’s a great moment.”
The community of Sevierville opens many attractions to the children, like Dollywood and local museums.
There is also a school on campus for children who may not be ready for public school.
The biggest change the home has seen over the years, Sweet said, is the severity of needs. Children are more hurt than they have ever been.
A 9-year-old boy who came to the home several years ago was “pimped out” to men by his mother.
“He was the most vulgarmouthed human being you have ever met,” Sweet said.
The staff came to Sweet because the boy was so troubled they were unsure if they could keep him and the other children safe.
“If we give up on this child, where is he going to go?” Sweet said. “We just sat at the table and cried. I asked them to give me until the end of the summer.”
The boy soon went to a foster home. Eventually, he was attending football games and was adopted by his foster parents. Sweet received a photo of him as homecoming king.
He and his staff have hundreds of stories like this.
Each staff member gravitates to certain children, like the boy who was too afraid to skateboard because he thought he was going to die like his father had.
After working with house parent Keith Underwood, the boy became a great baseball player and can do more tricks off the diving boards than anyone.
“I watched him skin his elbow and get up and say he is going to do it again,” Underwood said. “He is learning how to be a normal boy.”
Underwood worked in a children’s home in Atlanta before moving to Sevierville and said Smoky Mountain helps more troubled children.
“Everyone on the team is so focused on the healing of the child,” said Underwood. Family counselor Anita Nail was one of those children.
Her mother died when she was 10, and her father came back from Vietnam an alcoholic. She came to the campus at 13.
“Smoky Mountain Children’s Home opened its doors to me,” Nail said. “It helped me fi nish high school and go to college to get an education degree.”
She went on to get a master’s degree in family counseling after working as a house parent for 12 years. She’s been counseling the past five to reunite families.
“I keep in contact with most of them (the children),” Nail said. “About 12 to 15 call me Mom, and I see them weekly.”
The organization measures its success in a variety of ways since every child’s trauma is different.
“You had a really bad day today and said 25 curse words. What can we do tomorrow?” Sweet said. “If they come in tomorrow and have a tantrum and only say four or five curse words, we consider that a victory.”
Shante Clark said she wants to be her own success story to tell others. She wants to perform and teach her love of music while remaining close to God .
“If I see kids struggling like me, I can minister to them,” Clark said. “I have been there, and I can tell them there is light at the end of the tunnel.”
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Allison Rupp is a freelance contributor to the News Sentinel.
© 2010 Knoxville News Sentinel. Used with permission.
