Father's House Kids

Father's House Kids (FHK) is a life changing resource for 6 to 18-year-old at-risk youth. FHK provides an opportunity for under-served young boys and men to take part in activities geared towards improving their potential to lead successful lives. Through this program, they gain life skills, discipline, character, and hands-on education that are vital to successfully enter today's work force. STEM fosters comprehension and application to increase their interest in math and science.

Since roughly 80% of our youth live in single-parent households, their mothers have extreme burden on them. The connection between fatherlessness and unrealized potential in children is staggering. At Father's House Kids, we step in and provide the benefits that a father usually offers - protection, provision, affirmation and development. In many instances, these single-mother households have numerous children of various ages. By providing support to families, our programs go beyond assisting the youth in furthering their future by alleviating the burden on the female caregivers. Our programs ensure that their children have the opportunities in character development, work training, education, tutoring and safe play. All of our activities are offered free of charge by loving, invested volunteers.

The purpose of Father's House Kids is to develop our youth from "Boys to Men, Men to Husbands, and Husbands to Fathers." This purpose is so important in the restoration of the family unit within the New Orleans community. To provide the next generation with stable, educated, trained, confident young men of integrity is the foundation needed for the next generation of young women and their children to thrive and succeed. Our vision is to see the cycle of neglected children and overburdened women break as young men are being prepared to have successful careers, to provide for their future families.

Our activities are as follows:
1. Career Corps Program - We meet every Saturday for 5 hours at our Training Center facility, where we feed the boys breakfast and lunch; teach a life skills/relationship lesson; rotate small groups in hands-on work training groups including carpentry, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) experiments and lessons, electrical training, painting, process technology training; health and physical fitness in our workout area; team building through outdoor activities; small group discussions on relevant topics that the boys face in school, in the workplace and at home. Age group: 11-18 years old

2. FHK Junior Warriors Program - We meet every Sunday for 3 hours and provide life skills skits for easy understanding. Age group: 6 - 11 years old
We have a short lesson and discussion about the action-packed skit, followed by hands-on activities such as simple building projects, crafts, art projects, etc. to develop fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination and focus; feed them dinner and bring the boys home. All transportation for all activities is provided by FHK. We currently have three 15-passenger vans, have volunteers who drive their own vehicles, and need more vehicles. We have more children who want to participate than we have seatbelts in our vehicles!

3. Summer Program - Every summer we host two summer programs in July. One is for boys ages 6-11 and includes swim lessons, outdoor activities, hands-on teaching and STEM experiments, meals, transportation and t-shirt/hat.
The other summer program is for boys ages 11-18 and is a work training program and includes supervised work training by construction and engineering professionals, meals, transportation and t-shirt/hat.

4. After School Tutoring - Volunteer mechanical engineer offers tutoring during the week to boys who ask for help. We hope to offer additional tutoring in the future, especially during the summer. This is an area of planned expansion in our offerings, as many of the children need focused help in certain areas.

Everything we offer is free of charge to the boys we serve in the Greater New Orleans area, including the 9th Ward, St. Bernard Parish, Jefferson Parish, and St. Charles Parish.