56 THE GREENEVILLE SUN GREENE COUNTY GUIDEBOOK
www.greenevillesun.com
Friday, August 30, 2013
Holston United Methodist Home Aids Children And Teens Holston United Methodist Home for Children, with headquarters and main campus in Greeneville, helped more than 400 children and their families in 2012. Holston Home offers a wide variety of services, including residential care and group care for 50-60 children. These children attend Beacon School on campus, where they receive individual instruction to help them make up deficiencies in their academic progress. The goal is to find permanent families for children in care, through foster family care, adoption or return to their rehabilitated homes. Foster parents are trained by professionals at Holston Home in the intricacies of dealing with children who are not their own.
have at one time or another called Holston Home “home” since then. Holston Home employs about 160 people, most of them working in Greeneville. The ministry has offices with social workers in Knoxville, Johnson City, Bristol, and Chattanooga, covering the Holston Conference of the United Methodist Church, an area encompassing all of East Tennessee, the 17 western-most counties of Virginia, and four counties in North Georgia.
SUN PHOTO BY LISA WARREN
TWO DAY CARE CENTERS Holston Home operates two day care centers in Greeneville — the Children’s Center on the Newport Highway and Small Miracles near the Fairgrounds. Tuitions are sometimes subsidized by United Way. Both child care centers have been awarded Tennessee’s three-star ranking, which are the highest possible ratings, and are inspected regularly to ensure that children are learning and playing in a safe and wholesome environment.
This stately brick structure, at 810 W. Irish St., is the last remaining building of the original Holston Home orphanage. A crowd attended the June 24, 2013 dedication of the building as the Charles and Eva Grey Hutchins History House.
(PAL) at the Brumit Center apartment complex — one for girls and one for boys — where they are taught how to live on their own. They must pay rent, keep their apartments clean, do their own cooking, attend school regularly and hold a regular, part-time job. They are taught how to manage their finances, apply for a job and be a good neighbor. They PAL PROGRAM Teens who are approaching also learn the value of commuthe age of 18 may move into nity service. At the end of their experience Preparation for Adult Living
in the PAL program, the rent they paid is returned to them to be used as “seed” money to help them pay their own way as newly-on-their-own adults. Students at Holston Home are provided counseling and other support services and have recreational facilities available to them, including an equestrian program, a ropes course, a climbing wall, racquetball court, a gymnasium and an outdoor, covered basketball court. They participate in regular canoeing, hiking and camping.
A garden and a small orchard teaches them agricultural skills. BACKGROUND In 1895, Mrs. Elizabeth Wiley, widow of the president of Emory & Henry College in Virginia, founded Holston Home as an orphanage. Mrs. Wiley believed that every child had the right to a safe place to live, a good education, and the opportunity to gain Christian knowledge. More than 8,500 children
RECENTLY RENOVATED Holston Home in recent years has completed a rebuilding and renovation project, in which it replaced “cottages” built in 1954 with new residences, renovated the Administration Building, and landscaped the campus. The project was completed and dedicated in August 2009. Much of Holston Home’s funding comes from the churches in the Holston Conference and individual donors who wish to help children reach their God-given potential. The State of Tennessee also provides funding through contracted care. When students leave Holston Home, they are provided followup support. Holston Home and its donors provide scholarship opportunities for students to continue their education after high school. Additional information is available on the website at www. holstonhome.org or by calling (423) 638-9267.
Nolachuckey-Holston Mental Health Center Offers Many Services Nolachuckey-Holston Area Mental Health Center is the community’s leading provider of mental health, substance abuse and/or co-occurring disorders, 24/7 crisis services, developmental disabilities, recovery and vocational rehabilitation services for adults, children
and youth. Outpatient counseling and case management services are provided for adults, children and youth in Greene County, and satellites in Rogersville and Sneedville. As a division of Frontier Health,
individuals can access services at 65 other hearing impaired, AIDS, runaways, youth facilities in 12 counties of Northeast Tennes- in crisis, adolescent group care and therasee and Southwest Virginia. peutic foster care. The regional provider offers residential Outpatient and residential facilities serve alcohol and drug treatment and crisis stabilization services nearby and addresses the PLEASE SEE SERVICES | 57 needs of victims of domestic violence, the