Sheriff’s Office awards $10,000 to local ministry

Finding the Lost Sheep Street Ministry, a Winter Garden faith-based nonprofit, was blessed Wednesday, May 6, with $10,000 from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office to support crime prevention efforts within its community. 

This year, the Sheriff’s Office awarded $300,000 to 39 nonprofit and community organizations working to make Orange County safer through mentoring, neighborhood safety, crime prevention, drug education and other community programs.

The funding comes from money seized from criminals and is being reinvested directly back into the community. 

For Finding the Lost Sheep Street Ministry, this funding means new courses for the youth and their parents, such as sewing and candle and soap making, as well as necessary supplies to provide proper education in science, technology, engineering, arts and math.

The ministry’s community center is located at 784 Klondike Ave., Winter Garden, where children and adults come to work for a better future through its STEAM, Impact Family Stability, Home Economics and Healthy Action Positive Parenting initiatives. 

The OCSO’s grant will impact the ministry’s Healthy Action Positive Parenting Initiative as well as the Home Economics Program. 

Through that program, children learn life skills such as cooking, sewing, health and hygiene, money management, community awareness and serving. 

Through this funding, the ministry now is able to provide a new sewing class for children and their parents, while also providing materials, cloth and sewing machines. 

Sharee Villard-Hodge, president and executive director of the nonprofit, said this is an opportunity for parents and children to bond while learning a valuable skill. 

In addition, they also will have the opportunity to learn how to make soaps and candles and skills to help run an efficient home. 

Its parenting initiative, also known as HAPPI Parents, also will benefit from the grant. 

With an Active Parenting curriculum, parents learn proven techniques to make positive changes in their homes and children’s lives, with an emphasis on mutual respect, responsibility, personal choice and cognitive-behavioral approaches to change through hands-on and interactive activities. 

“Our parenting program focuses on reducing childhood behavioral problems and also working with the parents so that they communicate better with their children,” Villard-Hodge said. 

The parenting program is a six-month program used to create positive interactions between parents and children, while also lowering childhood behavioral issues, offering trauma-informed care and cultivating a healthy environment. 

Through these funds, members of HAPPI Parents initiative will have access to necessary materials to successfully complete the program. 

“It’s a two-generation model where we’re trying to affect the child and the parent,” Villard-Hodge said. “We want to affect them to make sure that they’re economically stable that instead of choosing drug addiction, selling drugs, prostitution, getting involved in gangs or criminal activity, they teach their children how to become entrepreneurs, and this is what leads to community sustainability.” 

Orange County Sheriff John Mina said over the past seven or eight years, the county’s crime rate has decreased by 43%. 

Villard-Hodge said there are hundreds of testimonies of the work the ministry does in regard to changing the youth and their families lives. 

“We try to give them a different experience and just elevate their minds — there is so much more than what’s happening in this community,” she said. “It’s Kingdom work. We all come together, we all help each other. We’re giving a hand out, but we’re also giving a hand up.” 

Currently, the ministry needs a bigger space. 

It is serving about 175 to 200 families monthly, and with new courses and materials, Villard-Hodge is anticipating to serve another 20 to 30 families. 

“It’s difficult to serve a lot of people out of this small space,” she said. “We need more space. All of our programs need their own space like a science room, technology, engineering, our parenting resource center (and) the youth entrepreneurs lab.” 

While ministry members are more than grateful for OCSO’s generous donation, this is just the beginning.

“We’re in the business to change lives, transform lives, and stabilize families and communities,” Villard-Hodge said.