OUR STORY

For over 15 years, Hands & Feet Project has been providing family-style, residential care for Haiti’s orphaned and abandoned children.

Our Timeline

2016 Year in Review

2016 was a year that stretched our faith and defined our beliefs. With your help we were able to build more homes, care for more boys and girls, create more jobs, and see God do amazing work in the lives of our staff and children. We invite you to believe

Reunified
Reunified

Reunified our first residential child with family.

Kay Pwason
Kay Pwason

Completion “Kay Pwason”, our Fish House. This is an Aquaponics system and agricultural space focused on fish production and growing vegetables in Jacmel.

Village Values Celebration
Village Values Celebration

Hosted our first Village Values Celebration weekend honoring our our staff and children for their honesty, responsibility, obedience and love.

Reunification
Reunification

In partnership with Haiti’s child protective services, we assisted in the reunification of nearly 50 children.

IKONDO

IKONDO The dream to create dignified hospitality-based jobs that push against Haiti’s growing orphan and child abandonment crisis is born, in a partnership with Frazer Church in Montgomery, AL.

Fighting for Families
Fighting for Families

Hands and Feet adds “Fighting for families” to its mission statement, making family preservation efforts a foundational goal. Haiti Made, job creation for children transitioning out of orphan care and mothers in crisis, begins.

CAFO
CAFO

Hands Feet continues to explore best practices along the childcare continuum in partnership with CAFO. (Christian Alliance for Orphans)

Natural Disasters

Hands and Feet, along with the rest of Southern Haiti, continues to recover from one of the worlds worst natural disasters. Hands and Feet pushes deeper into the emotional care needs of the children in partnership with the Refuge Center.

Earthquake
Earthquake

At 4:53 pm on January 12th, Haiti was devastated by a massive earthquake, leaving over 100,000 people dead. Hands and Feet assisted in relief efforts for months in and around Grand Goave and Jacmel Haiti.

Grand Goave
Grand Goave

We assisted local pastors and organizations in an effort to rescue children from a corrupt facility – In Grand Goave, a new Children’s Village is needed to meet the need.

Hurricanes
Hurricanes

Hurricane Gustav, Hanah, and Ike brought serious flooding, causing a major landslide which left the Children’s Village buried under 6 feet of rock and earth.

Mothers in Crisis
Mothers in Crisis

Started program to help mothers in crisis with health and sanitation training, vitamins and supplements.

Hands & Feet Project
Hands & Feet Project

24 children are now placed in the loving care of the Hands and Feet Project growing village.

Tamara
Tamara

Hands and Feet welcomes the first little girl, Tamara.

Our Beginning

For over 15 years, Hands & Feet Project has been providing family-style, residential care for Haiti’s orphaned and abandoned children. Inspired by fan reaction to their song, “Hands and Feet,” the Christian music group Audio Adrenaline founded the organization in 2004. Beginning just outside of Jacmel, Haiti (Cyvadier), property was purchased and the dream to provide a home for orphaned and abandoned children took root. Drex and Jo Stuart came in as our first missionaries later that year, and by 2005 Hands & Feet Project welcomed our first child, Tamara. She has grown into a young lady who is known as our social butterfly, filled with sensitivity and a love for people.

Children's Village

Hands and Feet Project quickly started to see its Children’s Village growing along with hosting short term missionaries to serve alongside our team in Haiti. As the community relationships grew, so did the vision for community assistance. In 2008, a program to help mothers in crisis with health and sanitation training, vitamins, and supplements was put into place. Four years in, the team linked arms with local pastors and organizations to rescue children from a corrupt institution. As a result, a new Hands & Feet Project Children’s Village was formed in Grand Goave, Haiti.

Fighting for Families

Over the next few years, the team would host hundreds of short term missionaries, assist in relief efforts after a devastating earthquake, and continue to lean into the needs of the people of Haiti. In the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, Hands & Feet Project decided to push deeper into the emotional care of the children, and began a partnership with The Refuge Center in Franklin, TN. This led to a furthering of the vision in the ways that we structure long term, residential care for children at Hands & Feet Project. As the team sifted through this, the Circle of Care was implemented to tend to the children's physical, educational, emotional, and spiritual health. As this passion pushed the vision forward, Hands & Feet Project officially added “Fighting for Families” to the mission statement, making family preservation efforts a foundational goal. Haiti Made was then founded as a job creation initiative for children transitioning out of orphan care and mothers in crisis. An expansion of the Jacmel campus soon followed, to prepare for the nearly 70 children that reside there today.

IKONDO

As the operation of Hands & Feet Project had grown to care for over 100 children on two campuses and host many short-term trips, the team began to set forth a vision for a place to host a more dignified and equitable exchange between the Haitian people and trip-goers. This vision is a direct result of Hands & Feet Project's pursuit to transform the way the church looks at missions. In 2015, the team began construction on IKONDO, a mission guest house that doubles as a job creation initiative that hosts families, churches, and individuals on mission trips. Our new goal is for our guests to experience Haiti in new ways through our Explore, Retreat, and Serve initiatives.

The Future

The Hands & Feet Project team is deeply committed to Haiti. We are passionate about caring for the people God has placed in our care. We work tirelessly in hopes to see each child reach their God-given potential. We strive to see families reunified, to see the child abandonment cycles in Haiti no longer exist at current levels, and to see children raised by family. Our team continues to dive deeper into the needs around them and respond as able. Lastly, we celebrate what God has done, the growth we have seen and hold to a deep belief that there is, indeed, more to come.

Support Our Work

Thank you so much for your generosity!