OUR HOUSE is a non-profit, residential program in Montgomery County, MD, for male youth who have been abandoned, homeless, abused, orphaned or shuffled through the juvenile and social service systems and need a new start. The school is on 140 acre farm that Oprah Winfrey helped purchase in 2000 when she heard about the school. It is 45 minutes North of Washington, DC. Students come from the Washington, Maryland, and DC Metro areas. It is open year-round.
OUR HOUSE offers a structured and supervised learning environment which provides the students with a vocational education and the buildings trade. Upon graduation from the program, the students will not only have an expertise in carpentry, roofing and drywall, but they will also have the academic background to insure their survival as working adults. In addition, they work in our State certified organic garden and do beekeeping. The young men then market the produce and honey. 100% of the proceeds are put in bank accounts for the students for when they graduate. The students do weekly community service to learn to "give back"..
The program also includes weekly training in life skills such as budgeting, balancing a checkbook, first aid, personal health, conflict resolution, substance abuse awareness, and parenting skills -- as well as group and individual counseling. The goal is to provide our students with the skills and tools that they need to become productive, tax-paying, positive members of their community.
OUR HOUSE serves males who are ages 16 - 20 and whose lives have been scarred by poverty, collapsing families, poor school performance, and stays in foster homes and state juvenile centers. They are at-risk of not finishing high school, going on welfare, being incarcerated, or not having the skills necessary to be a part of the work force, or their lives ending way too early. OUR HOUSE opens doors for them.
OUR HOUSE has a built-in success formula, with an 80% success rate.
The goal is to now to expand to meet the demand of the school's waiting list of needy students by building a dorm so we can increase our enrollment , meet the demands of our contonued waiting list and stop turning needy kids away.
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