CHAPTER FIVE

CASE STUDY OF CREATION OF A NEW SOCIAL SERVICE ORGANIZATION: THE HOPE BOX

Mary de Chesnay, Sarah Koeppen, and Tiffany Turolla

One of the crucial factors in obtaining grant funding for a social service organization is sustainability after funding ends. The best way to document sustainability is in the evaluation plan in which the leaders show the effectiveness of the work done by the organization; that is, were the expected outcomes achieved? Evaluation begins when the organization is created and is performed at regular intervals throughout the life of the organization. In this chapter, the authors present a case study of the beginning phases of a faith-based social service organization and show how the founders made the decisions they did in order to create the organization, how they obtained support, and what factors they considered in structuring the organization. At the time of publication, The Hope Box office renovation has not yet been completed but is scheduled to open shortly thereafter. Meanwhile, an incredible amount of foundation work has been done: getting legal advice, making connections with social service, medical and legislative people, and recruiting an evergrowing number of volunteers who are also passionate about caring for the vulnerable.

In 2006, the state of Georgia Department of Human Services (DHS) publicized an initiative to support community and faith-based projects to address child abuse. Relieving the stress on the overburdened child welfare system, these organizations provide a variety of options to families (DHS, 2006). The Hope Box is an innovative approach to unwanted pregnancy that bypasses both abortion and the cumbersome traditional adoption process. The organization does this by providing a drop box in a public place in which mothers can literally place their infants without being seen and therefore having to explain themselves. The Hope Box replaces the need for mothers to place their infants on the steps of a church or in an alley behind a fire station, abandoning them without knowing they will be safe. Medical staff receive the infant anonymously and provide immediate assessment, rehydration, and medical intervention.

Functioning under the abandonment laws of the state of Georgia, The Hope Box stabilizes the child, and a partner organization that is chartered as an adoption agency assumes custody of the child to find “forever” homes for the infants in their care. One problem with the traditional legal channel for adoption is that the mother carries the baby to term and then changes her mind, leaving prospective adoptive parents in the distressful position of having to start over. The Hope Box works with a legal agency that has a waiting list of prospective parents, shortening the time and simplifying the adoption process.

ORGANIZATIONAL MISSION AND STRUCTURE

The Hope Box is a faith-based organization founded by two women, mothers themselves, who share a passion for the plight of sex trafficking victims and other young mothers who find themselves unable to care for their infants. The mission of The Hope Box is to provide a safe and anonymous place for a mother to give up her newborn without fear of reprisal. The structure is evolving to meet the needs of the 501c3 application (an application for nonprofit status) but currently consists of an all-volunteer staff comprised of the two founders (second and third authors) and a volunteer medical coordinator who is a baccalaureate-prepared nurse. As no staff are paid, all donations are directly applied to setting up the agency to provide direct service. Funding to date has been solely through donations of time, space, and small amounts raised to cover costs. The charitable organization status is expected to generate tax-deductible donations.

METHODOLOGY

Design

Case study as a qualitative design is used for the study. The usefulness of case study as the design for studying a new organization is that it provides beginning data the organization can use for its growth, evaluation, and funding since grant agencies like to see documentation of decision making, an evaluation plan, and a plan for sustainability. For this case study, the founders (Koeppen and Turolla) of the organization document their work and decision making. The other author (de Chesnay) is a researcher who recorded their story.

Sample

Participants

The primary participants are the two founders of the organization and key staff. Several physicians and nurses have been recruited and they will undergo intensive training for volunteer staffing. Other volunteers are students who assist with office functions, fundraising, and marketing. An attorney serves as legal counsel pro bono. The board of directors is in the process of being formed but includes a variety of professionals and community leaders.

Who Are the Founders?

The women who founded The Hope Box have dedicated their lives not only to their own families but also to facilitate happy adoptions by other families. They have extensive experience in international mission work and are educating themselves with the help of their advisory board to the intricacies of the abandonment laws and the adoption process. Partnering with an adoption agency, they match the infants with preapproved adoptive parents.

Impact on the Community

By providing a safe haven for mothers to give up their infants without reprisals, the women also are addressing the growing problem of domestic minor sex trafficking in their community. Sex trafficking is sometimes thought to be a problem “over there and far away” from the United States, but it is a major problem in the United States (de Chesnay, 2013). Worldwide, about 35.8 million people are trapped in slavery (Global Slavery Index, 2014), representing more than the trans-Atlantic slave trade of earlier centuries (UNESCO, 2016). Atlanta is one of several American cities with the highest rates of sex trafficking (Dank et al., 2014).

IRB Statement

For this case study, institutional review board (IRB) approval was given by the principal investigator’s university and the co-investigators are the two founders of the organization.

Setting

The Hope Box is a newly renovated space in a strip mall next to an urgent care center, donated by a local business. It is being subdivided into an exam room, an office, and a waiting room. The total area is about the size of a small restaurant or insurance office. Visitors enter from the front of the building into a waiting area adjacent to a partially enclosed office and separated from the back of the space, which is dedicated to an exam room, nursery, and medical equipment storage for addressing the needs of the infants. The box itself is cut into the fire door, which opens to a small alley behind the strip mall. This enables mothers to drop off the infants privately and also allows for ambulance access if needed. The box will be cushioned and furnished with cameras and an alarm to alert the staff to open the box.

RESULTS

The founders are coauthors of the chapter and their stories comprise the data source. Following are their stories in their own words.

Tiffany Turolla

    My name is Tiffany Turolla, I have co-founded The Hope Box, Inc. with my business partner Sarah Koeppen. To begin my story, I will share about my life prior to The Hope Box. I grew up as a pastor’s daughter. Both my mother and father have been in ministry and pastoring for over 40 years. They raised our family to care for those in need, help those who are helpless, and honor the Lord in all that you put your hand to. They instilled in us to not only love God but to go and do greater things than Jesus. I was raised feeding the homeless, providing for the needy, praying for the sick, honoring the widows, and caring for the orphans. Many times throughout my life we hosted families, young adults, teenagers, and extended family members into our home. Although we were not a foster family, we surely took those in who needed a home and a family, together we became Christ’s hands and feet extended. I have traveled to many countries on ministry trips, sharing the gospel, praying for healing, and being the extended arms of the Kingdom of Heaven to the lives of thousands of people. My parents have a nonprofit called Hope Makes A Difference in which they support and care for orphanages, tribes, and communities around the world. They have extended the legacy of their parents into their generation while training their children to do the same. My mother’s parents and grandparents were both foster families and ministers. They were one of the top-requested foster families in the State of Washington. They would take in the worst of the worst cases, whether it would be the handicapped, mentally challenged, babies born on drugs and alcohol; the ones others rejected quickly became family. They loved and cared for each child who came through their doors pouring into them the love of Jesus and praying them into their future adoptive homes. My father’s parents and grandparents were ministers and travelling evangelists changing and shaping their generations for the Kingdom of God. As you can see, there is a history ingrained into my very core that reaches far beyond the depths of legacy I will ever truly understand.

          The Lord really began my path through music. As a child I oozed worship. I would go to bed changing the lyrics to songs on the radio to reflect the love and worship to Jesus so much so my dad took it upon himself to listen at my door at night to then turn around to learn the songs I have re-written and play them for (my unintentionally embarrassment) the congregation at church on Sunday. Worship was and is my passion. I started officially leading on the worship team in my church at the age of 14, going on to becoming the worship leader by the age of 18. I took the summer after high school graduation to tour with a record label I was signed with and really get my feet wet into what I thought would be my music career. After touring, I quickly realized that performing music wasn’t enough, I wanted more out of my time spent on stage and with people afterwards. It lacked the ministry and intimacy that happens in truly abandoning yourself before the Lord in worship. That true connection you get when you let your guard down and just love him through the music. As King David danced undignified before the Lord I too seek that experience with the Father each time I lead a song.

          After that tour, I returned to do missionary trips to Brazil where the Lord opened several opportunities for me to lead worship for major influential international ministries to help release the Kingdom of Heaven into the streets and hearts of the people in Brazil. The Lord changed me, where I feel he actually began to truly shape me for my calling and destiny to begin to be fulfilled. Since those trips I attended different ministry schools to educate myself into this field I feel called to. Also, I was married to my husband, Lucas, of 8 years, and we have three beautiful children, Isabella, Liam, and Guinevere. I continued as the worship leader for my parent’s church and started to self-publish my music.

          Then 2½ years ago, the Lord called my husband and me to Atlanta, Georgia. Within 2 months of agreeing to move we were here living away from everyone, family, friends with only a few connections in this area. A year and a half ago I met Sarah. Through the development of our friendship we began to discover each other’s dreams, passions, and desires. Sarah’s testimony of her son Elijah is amazing. Sarah’s son Elijah was abandoned at her doorstep when he was 3 years old, left by his mother with a car seat, bike, and back pack. Sarah had no prior contact with his mother. Sarah also comes from a family of ministers. Her father has been ministering and pastoring for over 40 years as well. She is the fourth of 12 children. Sarah and her husband Joel were leaders in their church and community really focusing on building strong families and counseling many in their community when Elijah’s grandmother approached her. She explained to Sarah that her daughter wanted to ask Sarah and Joel to adopt her baby when she was pregnant 3 years prior but changed her mind after delivery. Her daughter was caught up in a tough lifestyle and decided that she wanted to pursue the Koeppens again to take her son Elijah. The Lord had already prepared Sarah and Joel 2 weeks earlier by speaking to them of a child who was not a newborn but a little older that was to be a part of their family although they did not know how this would happen. Sarah and Joel agreed to the grandmother’s request from the daughter to take Elijah into their family. From this point, Sarah began to pursue social services requesting advocates for herself and Elijah and was told, “There’s nothing illegal about her leaving him in a safe place, good luck.” Stunned by the response, Sarah began researching the laws of Colorado and counseling with lawyers to become one in five in the state of Colorado to gain sole custody of a nonblood relative. The judge said to Sarah, “People like you do not exist.” Again, stunned by this response, Sarah began to question why not? Why isn’t the body of Christ stepping up and being what the body was intended for? That began a fire in her spirit to actively find a solution in the communities to help these children and babies being abandoned.

          As she shared this testimony, she asked if I had heard of [the Drop Box in Seoul, Korea] and I quickly stopped her by replying that I had a year or two prior from a YouTube video. [Pastor Lee Jong-Rak of South Korea created a box in which mothers could leave their unwanted children. The story was told in a documentary film directed by Brian Ivie and released in March of 2015 (Ivie, 2015).] It was something that always stuck with me. I had not experienced firsthand abandonment, but I had just had my first baby pregnant with my second and my heart was captured. Longing to be an answer to abandoned babies in my area. Little did I know the Lord had divinely set up our friendship.

          Then we meet. She explains her testimony and my heart was excited; my thoughts began to process as she kept talking until I looked at her and said, “We can do this.” She responded, “Really?” I replied. “Yes!” and at that moment we both felt the spirit of the Lord increase in our midst and a divine shifting happened in our spirits. We both looked at each other realizing what had happened and that the Lord orchestrated our paths to do this.

          Over the next few months Sarah and I began to figure out what it would look like. Finally, coming to an outline of a vision one inspired by personal experience and in part by Pastor Lee. We began researching baby boxes finding them in all parts of the world but not in the United States. We began consoling with many people, lawyers, social workers, pastors, and family members, to see if the vision the Lord had developed in us could work. Is this legal? Are we reading this correctly? Does this look right? Through our research, findings, and development, we decided to partner and work under Hope Makes a Difference and launch our vision of The Hope Box. We began our vision cast in November 2014 followed by an internet launch in December 2014 as a developing project under Hope Makes a Difference.

          We quickly began to receive a response from the community. By January, we found ourselves with our first two volunteers, a nursing student and a lawyer. As we began to speak out into our community another lawyer who happens to be highly involved with rescuing girls and women out of sex trafficking approached us. As he began to share his personal experiences we quickly saw an additional need for what we were doing. He followed by saying that we were a solution to an unfortunate byproduct of this problem. This was such a devastating statement. One account of a situation really hit home to me as a young 4-year-old girl was sold into trafficking by her father. She was trafficked through 21 different states before being rescued at 6 years old. As a result of her trafficking she now is in rehabilitation for schizophrenia. As he shared her story my heart sank into my stomach and my emotions were filled with rage, disgust, sorrow, and heartbreak, as I have a young 5-year-old daughter sitting at home waiting for me to arrive from work. How could this happen to a child? From my new awareness of the realities of trafficking not only what is portrayed in movies I knew that we needed to help protect these babies even more. It ignited a fire in me that brought fierce determination to protect and save those who have no voice. He proceeded by sharing a firsthand account of assisting in the rescuing of a pregnant teenager from the Mexican cartel traffickers who kidnapped the girl after her pimp “boyfriend” learned she was pregnant and shipped her into Mexico. Along with his counsel and advice, we began more research into the area of sex trafficking. We began to speak with Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) investigators, superior court judges, hospital employees, and other organizations that all fight against trafficking and were told time after time, “we don’t know what happens to the babies.”

          Through further research, we learned there are several things that can happen to the babies of mothers in trafficking through unwanted pregnancies, here are a few examples;

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