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Moultrie News featured Windwood Farm in this special front-page article. The community ensured that our boys had a Merry Christmas!
Happy holidays and best wishes for a wonderful New Year!
Give a gift that does more. Shop the Click virtual store this season. All proceeds are donated to Windwood Farm Home for Children until the end of January.
On October 15, 1985, Windwood Farm Home for Children opened its doors to six boys in state custody as a residential treatment facility. At the farm, the boys would receive the intense therapy and care they needed to recover from trauma most often caused by abuse or neglect. Thirty-five years later, over 700 boys have called Windwood Farm home. When Jody Tamsberg and his wife Anne decided to move their family from Windwood Farm to Georgetown, they fulfilled a dream by offering their beautiful property on the banks of the Wando River as a refuge and place of healing for boys. The Tamsbergs wanted the boys to have a home where they could fish, ride bikes, go for walks, and play ball like other kids while receiving treatment. The beauty and serenity of the 110-acre farm provides such a refuge. “I had wonderful parents who taught me the joy and obligation of giving [...]
Times are tough for all of us; they are particularly difficult for boys like 13-year-old Darnell. Will you help us show him that someone cares? Darnell never met his father. His mother committed suicide when he was just 5 years old, but for years he believed his mom was murdered by her boyfriend. You can imagine why he became angry and why that anger didn’t go away. When he was still in elementary school, Darnell’s anger turned into physical aggression and verbal abuse. He got into trouble with the law and was on his way to a life in jail. Fortunately, he found Windwood and a new path for his life. You can give Darnell the second chance he deserves. To continue providing residential treatment to children like Darnell, we need to raise more money than ever. This amount is more than in the past for two reasons: 1) our expenses have skyrocketed because [...]
“Recent events have again brought to light systemic racism in our law enforcement institutions, but we know it exists in other systems as well. We cannot pretend that these realities that our neighbors of color experience in their daily lives are based on individual choices but rather we must confront the reality that our systems have been set up to get exactly the results we are seeing. This is the time to talk about the root causes for the health inequities among contracting and dying from the disease at a much higher rate than whites. It is about the disparities that children of color face, being removed from their families and placed into foster care at a disproportionate rate and being sent to prison at higher rates as well. It is about the inequities in access to quality education among low-income and African American communities that leave too many children behind. Systemic racism [...]
The health and safety of our community is our top priority; we will continue taking steps to protect the many people we contact every week. In response to the state of emergency declared by Governor McMaster, Windwood Family Services is taking steps to help prevent the spread of COVID-19/Coronavirus. We are in touch with state and city officials and are continually updating measures to protect our Windwood residents and community based services clients. Under our current virus protocol, everyone who enters a Windwood building is required to sign in and is asked about recent travel, whether they are experiencing flu-like symptoms, and whether anyone in their household has been quarantined. People who answer yes to any of these questions will be asked to leave as a precaution. How has Windwood Family Services handled school closing? Windwood staff will provide academic instruction and enrichment to the boys residing on our campus while Charleston County School [...]
By Zach Giroux - news@moultrienews.com The livelihood of 25 boys at a residential treatment facility was made a little bit better over the weekend. The boys’ happiness was a result of 25 bicycles donated by a single teenager. On Sunday afternoon, Feb. 16, Mount Pleasant 14-year-old Luke Payne and his family dropped off a trailer of used and refurbished bicycles to Windwood Farm Home for Children in Awendaw. The delivery was a surprise but both parties are still shocked with excitement and overjoyed. “We were just really tickled that somebody chose our charity,” said Debbie McKelvey, Windwood Farm’s executive director. “Especially somebody young stepping up and doing something like that; it’s very meaningful to us.” Since 1985, the private non-profit care program has been housing children 6 through 16-years-old to prevent abuse and neglect. Some children are homeless, the majority are in custody of the state after several previously failed placements. The program is [...]
Adverse Childhood Experiences South Carolina’s Adverse Childhood Experiences Initiative Empowering communities to prevent childhood adversity Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are traumatic events that occur in a child’s life prior to the age of 18. This adversity can harm a child’s brain and its development, which can result in long-term negative health and social outcomes. ACEs include emotional, physical and sexual abuse; domestic violence; substance use and mental illness of someone in the household; being separated from parents, including incarceration and divorce; food insecurity; and homelessness. Through the empowerment of communities, the South Carolina ACE Initiative helps children and families overcome the effects of traumatic experiences, prevent poor health outcomes and promote well-being later in life. Children’s Trust is training to increase awareness of ACEs and their impact, collecting and disseminating data, building a prevention planning framework, and promoting sound legislative policy to address ACEs in our communities. More about the Original ACE Study Know [...]