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Dunedin Students Aid Project For The Heart

Cheryl Bentley/SUNCOAST NEWS

Emilee Kiekens, 17, looks over clothing at Raising Hope's staging area in Dunedin She is a member of Girl Scout Troop 1850 in Dunedin. Troop members volunteer there weekly.

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By Cheryl  Bentley | The Suncoast News

Published: May 31, 2008

Justine Knox is an old-timer at working for good causes. The Dunedin High School student has collected money from schoolmates for the American Heart Association and animal rights.

Her latest project, raising money for an organization that helps Pinellas County foster children, hit close to home because Justine has friends who are foster children.

Justine, 15, was one of the students participating in a drive to help foster children organized by Dunedin High's English teacher Meredith Cappel-Kane.

The students raised more than $1,000 and contributed numerous items of clothing and supplies.

Katie Wolf, 15, and Caitlin McLain, 14, brought in more than $300 they collected from parishioners at St. Mark Lutheran Church in Dunedin. Lindsey Gow, 15, went door to door in her neighborhood and got $450, plus three bags of clothing. Taylor Matteucci, 15 brought in big bags of clothing.

Raising Hope seems to have tugged at the hearts of members of Dunedin-based Girl Scout Troop 1850 as well. The girls volunteer weekly, sorting and organizing items at the organization's staging area in Dunedin.

There, the many shelves of neatly folded donated clothing contrast to a few meager belongings stuffed into a plastic garbage bag that were the seed for the beginning of Raising Hope. In 2002, Hope's vice president, Ann Hartle, saw that garbage bag clutched by a child entering the foster care system, and it broke her heart.

Soon after, Hartle, Billy Huettig and Kim Greenleaf began collecting clothing for the children just entering the system and buying duffel bags for carrying personal items.

The volume of requests became too great for the three to handle on their own. Thus, the nonprofit Raising Hope was born in 2004.

The organization provides children entering the system with bags filled with clothing, shoes and toiletry items. Many of the children are taken from their homes because of traumatic circumstances and end up in foster care with only the clothes they are wearing.

Last year, Raising Hope provided items for 1,546 foster children.

Those sturdy duffel bags allow new children to keep the few items they bring with them safely and with dignity, said Laura Llyn Segur, assistant director of licensing, placement and recruitment of Safe Children Coalition, the lead agency for Pinellas County child welfare services. "They're a form of security in a chaotic time," she noted.

Greenleaf, the organization's secretary-treasurer, appears more comfortable talking about the needs of the children than of her own efforts in the organization. Tears frequently well in her eyes when she describes the trauma the children undergo.

"We're just quiet people who quietly want to get the job done," Greenleaf said.

She and brother Billy Huettig, who is the organization's president, have offered a small building on the grounds of the family business, an electrical contracting company in Dunedin, as a staging area for collecting and sorting items before they go to the foster care facility.

The group also organizes a Christmas project in which families and organizations provide gifts, clothing and school supplies for foster children.

The name of Raising Hope is befitting, Greenleaf observed.

"Hope is the key. Just because you have difficult circumstances all may not be lost. There are kind souls to help you."

For more information visit www.raisinghopefl.org, or call 727-738-0507.

Donations of new and good quality used clothing, baby items, toiletries and school supplies may be dropped off at Huettig Electric, 324B Monroe St., Dunedin.

Cheryl Bentley can be reached at 727-815-1069 cbentley@suncoastnews.com.

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