Day 4- August 17th

Today we received a tour of the main campus at the City of Youth. The boys live here as well as go to school and the girls are bused every morning from their ranch for school. Kara, Phillip Smith's Assistant, explained that as the children complete their different grades that they spend about 6 months in each vocational field offered at Hope. The vocational training is so essential to their graduate life, that skill puts them in demand in the job market. There is a baking, restaurant/hotel, autobody, and hair dressing programs. Throughout their school year they also participate in music, language, art, gym, math, and geography classes.

After our tour we sat down to lunch with the children and got to spend some quality time with them. It was great to see that after only spending a few hours with them in the previous days that connections had been made and the children sought us out to sit with them. Our pocket Portuguese/English Dictionaries came in really handy!

We then changed and began to receive our work assignments. Our lists were long and we were excited to get started. The exterior of the cafeteria desperately needed a new paint job as did house number 8. There were also people painting the curb and stairs from the entrance to the campus to the cafeteria.



Baking Class


Autobody program


Lunch with the kids
(Steve, Rose, Nicole and Joy)


Donna and Barb getting supplies to start painting