My Other House Now Close To Becoming A Reality!
In late July, Teen Dream Team, the Rez House kids and a special group of dear friends from the Lutheran Church of the Ascension in Savannah, Georgia came together to give My Other House a makeover inside and out. Weeds were pulled and walls were painted with a Mexican flair. Why would we do so much to a building that we do not yet own? Because we have faith! Faith that God will deliver this building to the children of Tommytown and faith that good people like you will hear His call and step forward to help make this part of our vision a reality. Our faith has been rewarded, read on...
This all started when some obscene gang-related graffiti was spray-painted on the walls of an old pool hall on our street. We asked our administrative assistant to locate the owner so that we could let him know what had happened and get his permission to paint over the graffiti and eradicate the gang’s work. He had not been aware of the history of the building when he purchased it and was surprised to find out that the building was a hangout for gangs and drugs. In our conversation, he told us that he would be willing to sell the building to us if we wanted to do something worthwhile with it. As it happens, we have had a vision for that building for some time now. We have dreamed of a place that our teenagers could call their own and feel safe and at home. It would be sort of a second home, if you will, thus the name, "My Other House".
This "house" would be a place where our teens could get a meal after school, hang out with friends, do homework, get tutoring or just chill, all supervised in a way that lets the young people feel unrestricted.
We have many farmworker families that have no place to really send their children except what we have created. Our Norma Godinez Learning Center is here for the younger kids, Resurrection Park is here for families and our free clinic helps them when they are sick, but My Other House will belong to the teens, giving them a safe, nurturing environment as an alternative to the lure of the streets. In 1992, we started to work closely with the school system to try to reduce the disproportionately high rate of dropout and suspensions among Hispanic youth. We held meetings of school officials, parents and children at our facility and continue to strengthen that program. We have now developed our Teen Dream Team Project to focus on this area of need. Our staff works to facilitate problem solving among our farmworker public school students, their parents, the school system and law enforcement, and we provide tutoring as well. With help from donors and volunteers, and in partnership with Resurrection House Mission, a former project of ours that was a youth mission and is now a separate corporation, we together transformed a wooded area into a neighborhood park for the community. The park is about the size of a city block, and now has a paved basketball court, a soccer/football field, a pavilion, a tee-ball field, a picnic area and a children's playground area. 
Executive Director Margarita Romo will be seventy-two years old in October and it would be wonderful for her to see this additional vision come to fruition before our Heavenly Father puts her out to pasture, as she puts it. The youth of the Lutheran Church of the Ascension in Savannah, Georgia gave us our first $1,000 toward the building. Wachovia National Bank has given $24,000, the First National Bank of Pasco has given $5000, a long-time supporter and friend of Margarita's gave us $300 and Mark Bybee, our volunteer pastor at Resurrection House Mission, gave $3,500.
And here is the good news, miraculous news! Thanks to an anonymous donation given through Wachovia, we have reached our goal and have raised $70,600 to purchase the building. We are not done yet. Now that we have the building we will need to secure funding to run the day-to-day programs and pay the utilities. You can still help by making a donation to FSH for My Other House. We also have plenty of opportunities for people who would like to become a mentor to our youth. To find out what you can do to help, please call Margarita Romo at 352-567-1432.
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