It’s hard to see a bright future for yourself, let alone your younger four siblings, when your mother has said she does not want any of you and your father is in jail.

The five Smith children - Jose, Jocelyn, Hector, Javier, and Anna Lisa - came to St. Jude’s Ranch after their mother ran off with her boyfriend and did not return calls from Child Protective Services. This left the children homeless. They had no other family and were assigned a Case Worker who tried for months to find a safe place where the children could stay together, as all they had left was each other. No luck… until the Case Worker called St. Jude’s after learning about our ability to keep siblings together in our therapeutic, home-like cottages. The children could stay together and did not need to worry about being separated.

The children arrived with only the clothes they were wearing. No shoes, no favorite blankets and no teddy bears. The girls heads were covered with lice.

As the months passed, the children began to think of St. Jude’s as their first real home. They were happy to be together and not bounced around or separated anymore between foster homes and shelters. One afternoon, the staff and children surprised Anna Lisa with a birthday party. She began to tear up and said, “This is the first birthday party I’ve ever had!” Anna Lisa was 10.

The kids have continued to do well in our care and are spending quality time with each other daily, learning how to form positive, healthy sibling relationships through sibling therapy.