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Grandparents make great problem solvers. When Elsa Raab's eldest child Katara, 13, gets enraged, yelling at her mom and bemoaning the loss of her birth family, someone always calls Loralee Pena, 60, herself a former foster child. "She understands my problems," says Katara. Her brother Steven, 11, who arrived so disturbed he could not refer to himself in the first person, now regularly flies into the Penas' home looking for Loralee's husband, a.k.a. Grandpa Al, with whom he weed-whacks the grass.
The seniors get a lot out of Hope too. Jo Young, 66, and her husband recently took one of the Laws children on a trip to Disneyland. "They keep you on your toes," says Young. The bustle is apparently catching. Elmer Davis and his wife Marjorie moved, sight unseen, from Florida in the dead of winter after their son found Hope. Davis, who used to stay in bed most of the day after multiple surgeries, now spends his time chasing kids. Next month, he will chaperone Hope's biannual trip, this time to Seattle.
It's too early to tell if the Hope model can be effective--and financially viable--over the long term. The state contributes $500,000 a year, and there's the $300 a month from 42 senior units. The total cost is $16,000 a child--more than traditional foster care but about half the cost of institutional homes. Eheart says she is seeking a $10 million endowment--a daunting figure, until one considers that 80% of Illinois' prison population are former foster kids.
Eheart is not waiting for someone to pass judgment. She is working on a plan to care for Hope's seniors, recognizing that they are likely to die there long after they're able to do volunteer work. She is also in the early stages of a plan to replicate Hope Meadows. A 1997 partnership with Ronald McDonald House Charities to develop models was abandoned as premature. Though most of the former military bases have been bought by developers, a potential land donation in Michigan has Eheart leaning toward starting a new project from scratch, meaning new homes and sewers, staff and services--and another $10 million, which Rosie O'Donnell has agreed to help raise. "My dream is to have a few in every state," says Eheart. No small task either. But don't rule a big idea out.