'This is what we've been working towards'

Editor’s Note: This continues our Celebrate Community series on Santa Rosa County nonprofit organizations that improve residents’ quality of life.

JAY — My Father’s Arrows, a partner to entities within the child welfare system, is closer to opening its children’s home in Jay.

If the Santa Rosa County Commission approves a rezoning measure Thursday, the nonprofit organization will have the designation it needs to house multiple families at its building at 4025 Highway 178.

This is not a group home, but rather a foster supportive community, which will have individually licensed foster homes within the development, according to information that founder Sarah Ellis supplied to the county.

The organization’s initiative includes providing additional licensed beds for foster children, keeping sibling groups together and closer to this area, and assuring foster children receive the necessary individual educational and medical support, according to a letter of support from Circuit Judge Ross Goodman for the Santa Rosa Family Law Advisory Group.

My Father’s Arrows supports foster children from 0 to 17 years, their caregivers and foster children who have aged out of the system.

“This is what we’ve been working towards … Our focus will be on kids hardest to get homes for. Large sibling groups will be our primary focus. We’re not an orphanage but family-centered care. Each set of kids will have a foster mom and dad assigned to that set of kids to meet their specific needs,” Ellis said.

Realistically, the children’s home will be able to support 32 children when renovations are complete, Ellis said, but they need help.

“We’re working hard to renovate this house now, but we need financial resources (and) in-kind resources for building materials. We have teams every week painting (and) working. There’s a lot of cleanup at this property,” Ellis said.

The two next steps for My Father’s Arrows are a foster recruitment campaign in April and opening the first wing of the children’s home by June.

“We’re currently planning for a recruitment campaign. We’re setting a goal of 100 foster families for the year … Anybody that’s interested in helping can contact us through our Facebook page or through the website and we’ll be happy to get them plugged in,” Ellis said.

This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: 'This is what we've been working towards'