Our son Steven had many issues,

drug-related arrests when he was

young. And two very good

neighbors, we call them angels,

introduced us to to Bishop Murphy at the

time, he told us about a place out here

in Long Island called Hope House. And it

was run by a priest. And uh if there was

any chance that we could get Stephen

into it, it would be up to him. and he

wrote his letter to Father Frank. Two

weeks later, we we we got him released

from jail and brought him here and

he did his two years with Father Frank

and he ended up I think doing what five

more.

Yeah. He stayed and he helped Hope House

with many different things, charities.

I'm sorry. I think the camaraderie of

the fellow boys and men that were here

had a big part.

They all shared same or similar stories.

Similar stories, different stories.

And coming together, I think made them a

family. Not only our family, but made

them a family. And one thing I always

said to Stephen was there's a circle

and he needed to close it. And coming

here,

it closed it for him.

Community was I think the big thing here

for him, you know. He he needed to be

around that. He needed to be involved,

you know. Um

he just needed to help, you know. He was

he always had something going on where,

you know, he if he could do it, he was

going to do it. And like we always said,

you know, uh when Stephen finally

decided to leave here, you know, to

leave Hope House and uh go out to the

real world with a real job, um we got

Steven 2.0 back, you know. We really

did. The 2.1 version was good. The 2.2

version was was the answer for us, you

know. And if it wasn't for here, we

wouldn't have got him. to us. Hope

House, like my husband said, gave us

back our son.

He was bringing gifts to a family in

need. And he got to the house and it was

a snowstorm and the mom needed to get to

work and she was going to walk and it

was over two miles. And he said to me,

"Mom,

I I had to bring her to work. I couldn't

let her walk." So,

as a mom,

we know he he was doing the right thing

and being here at Hope House and all the

values that he learned helped him do

that. And I hope this message gets out

to other people to learn more about Hope

House and what it can do to help people.