'She saw this dire need'

Two determined mothers are behind Our Mother’s Home.

Helen Coppage opened it six years ago.

Mary Lewis has made it work.

Both women heeded a calling.

Today, Our Mother’s Home is one of four group homes in Florida that target teen mothers in foster care and their babies. It claims an 80 percent success rate of breaking the welfare cycle by making girls self-sufficient. Nearly 50 girls and 50 babies have gone through the home so far.

A foster mother to dozens of babies, Coppage learned many of the infants’ mothers were foster children themselves.

The San Carlos Park woman wanted to end the cycle of babies flowing into the child welfare system, which splinters families and costs taxpayers. She sought to create a place where a girl could learn to be a good mother instead of losing custody of her child to the state.

At age 74, Coppage began planning the faith-based organization. A board formed in 1994. She held chicken and spaghetti dinners and garage sales to raise money. Our Mother’s Home opened Mother’s Day 2000 in San Carlos Park. Coppage died that fall at age 81.

“She saw this dire need,” Lewis said of Coppage. “She was determined to start this home and stop that madness.”

Lewis understood the need to keep a mother and child together when she accepted the executive director job in 2002. She moved to Cape Coral from Illinois to be closer to her two adult children and four grandchildren in Lee County nearly seven years ago.

“I felt it was a divine calling,” she said. “It wasn’t a career move that made sense at all.”

Lewis hired an almost entirely new staff that she credits with helping improve the program. Board members and staff credit Lewis with improving the home and wrangling more donations.

“Mary is a queen. She’s an absolute saint,” said Ellie Poole, a retired schoolteacher and an Our Mother’s Home board member since 2003. “All her energy and her belief in the kids is somehow coming through.”

Lewis, 59, fights for each girl in memory of her brother, whom she believes was autistic. He struggled in school and later couldn’t keep a job but could memorize the TV Guide. He was murdered by two teenagers in 1983 while their parents were away on vacation. Lewis believes her parents thought he could fend for himself when he was not capable of doing so. He was 25 when he died.

“It’s about standing up for the person who can’t do it for themselves. There isn’t a single one of them who has had an advocate,” Lewis said.

She fights even harder when she feels like the state foster care system is treating the girls like a number or cost of business instead of a person.

Our Mother’s Home houses up to eight girls and their babies at a time and receives referrals from around the state. The waiting list averages 400 percent of the home’s capacity.

Girls range in age from 13 to 17 and must stay in school until they have a high school diploma or GED. They must continue their education or hold a job to live there. The home prefers both.

Our Mother’s Home costs the state almost four times more than foster care in an average month but supporters say it prevents babies from entering foster care and sucking dry taxpayer dollars in the future. Pay now, not later.

“This is not the cheapest way to raise a child but it’s the moral way,” Lewis said. “I understand it’s an expensive program, but what about the prison system?

What about welfare?

“Unfortunately, prevention is not a popular thing to fund.”

Girls must leave the home at 18 because the state cuts funding for room and board. Staff tracks girls and their babies for two years after they leave. The state covers 72 percent of Our Mother’s Home daily expenses and 38 percent comes from grants and donations. Since 2000, the state hasn’t increased the $107 per day it gives to cover costs for each girl.

With higher expenses in 2007, the home must come up with 43 percent of its budget in grants and donations. Staff hopes their track record for fulfilling the mission will help bolster donations.

Since 2002, when the home started tracking girls, staff knows of no girls who have lost custody of their babies after completing the program. There have been three adoptions.

This is one barometer of the home’s success, Lewis said.

Another is the five high school graduates — one was the first in four generations to graduate high school, two girls in college and two in vocational schools in the last four years. Many girls arrive at the home years behind in school.

It’s difficult for some girls to adapt to Our Mother’s Home. Some rebel. Many long to return to parents, even ones who have been abused or abandoned by them.

It’s hard for them to trust.

“At first they’re looking at you like, ‘I take care of my life lady,’” said Joan Landry, a house mother since the home opened. “Not only are our babies young but the girls are babies too. You’ve got to treat them with kid gloves.”

Some still suck their thumbs. Many carry scars of sexual, physical and emotional abuse.

One girl was shuttled to 37 foster homes by the time she was 15 before arriving at Our Mother’s Home. Another slept with a knife under her bed to fend off her mother’s pimp. Others care for babies that resulted from rapes by relatives.

Girls must work through anger to become good mothers.

Nancy Tarrete, a Naples mental health counselor, leads weekly parenting and anger management group counseling sessions. She also meets with girls one-on-one.

“They have a hard time feeling for one another,” Tarrete said. “They’re caught up in how bad their lives are. The alliances are changing constantly. They can be cruel.

“My goal is for them to be able to talk about what happened in their lives and to resolve some of the feelings around that and figure out how to fix their lives,” she said.

John Ruehl, board president since 2004, hopes Our Mother’s Home can become a state prototype.

“They get love. They get discipline. They get the building blocks they don’t get when they are in an dysfunctional situation,” Ruehl said. “It’s not just a place that warehouses people. We have many instances of these ladies going out into society and being productive citizens.”

Supporters are most hopeful for the babies that come through the program.

“Not to say we’re going to save every teenager, but the babies themselves are unscathed,” Lewis said. “That will forever give that baby a head start, as opposed to what the mother had, which was pitiful.”

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For more information, call (239) 267-4663 or go to www.ourmothershome.com.