Grace for the Kids: An introduction to Boys and Girls Homes of North Carolina

LAKE WACCAMAW, N.C. (WECT) - WECT is excited to launch a new monthly segment called “Grace for Kids” featuring one organization that works to ensure every child knows the meaning of home.

Boys and Girls Homes of North Carolina provides safe, healing, homelike settings for children who have been abused and neglected. The facility operates on a 150-acre campus in Lake Waccamaw, which includes a school, church, events arena and equestrian center.

The organization has operated for 71 years, originally established in 1954 as a boys-only facility.

“It started off as a boys’ home for kids who really had nowhere else to go. Sometimes it involved delinquency, but more than often it came from trauma in the family,” said Marc Murphy, president of Boys and Girls Homes.

The campus houses children in cottages designed to create a family-like environment. Each cottage accommodates up to eight children with full-time staff called “teaching parents.”

“All of our cottages are very homelike. They look like someone’s nice home. And the children can come in there and up to eight children total per cottage with our full-time staff that take care of them like a family. We eat meals together, we do activities together,” Murphy said.

Murphy, who started out as a teaching parent in one of those cottages, helped establish the foster program 26 years ago after recognizing a service gap.

“We realized that there was another big gap of services. And that was children who needed to be in a home-like setting or a foster family setting,” Murphy said.

The foster program is now the organization’s largest service. About 45 children live on campus, while 80 children live in foster homes.

Murphy said the children they serve are often misunderstood as troublemakers rather than victims of circumstances.

“One of the misconceptions is that the kids are sent here because of bad behavior, or it’s a punishment for how they’ve behaved. And that’s really the farthest from the truth. The kids have come here because, first and foremost, someone abused them or severely neglected them to the point that a judge had to intervene through child protective services and take them into legal custody,” Murphy said.

Marketing and Communications Director Amanda Irwin said the children behave like typical kids their age once people get to know them.

“If you got a basketball out, they’re going to want to play a game, and if they see you out on campus, they greet you. We just talk to them like we would with our own kids,” Irwin said.

The organization relies on volunteers for donations, event assistance, and foster parenting. Murphy said there is a place for every volunteer, just as there is a place for every child.

“We can create a forever family for the kids who aren’t able to return home,” Murphy said.

The “Grace for Kids” segment will air on the first Wednesday of every month. It’s sponsored in honor of Grace Thomas, a longtime Board of Trustees member and donor to Thomas Academy.

You can click here to learn more about Boys and Girls Homes.