Helping Hands of Clemson:

Our Story:

Helping Hands Children’s Home opened its door in 1984. Our mission is to provide the children placed in our care with a safe place to live as well as food, clothing, access to education, healthcare, and counseling. Our program accepts abused and/or neglected teenage boys who have been taken into care by the South Carolina Department of Social Services. We are licensed to care for teenage boys throughout the state but the majority of the children come from Anderson, Greenville, Spartanburg, Oconee, and Pickens Counties. Our current license grants us to care for boys from age 7 to age 21. The boys may be with us as little as overnight or up to a year or more. Our home can care for up to 32 boys at a time and has cared for more than 8,800 children since opening its doors. We have an annual operating budget of $989,000+. Over 50% of the children that find shelter at Helping Hands are here due to neglect that is often a direct result of parental substance abuse. Many of the children test positive for exposure to drugs.  All of the children have been victims of neglect and/or abuse (physical abuse, sexual abuse, and/or mental abuse). 

Shelter: The Children’s Shelter is a 14,000-square-foot facility with bed space for 32 children and the shelter is open 24 hours a day; 365 days a year. We employ 20+ caregivers, referred to as House Parents, and 3 cooks. The House Parents work one of three shifts to ensure that a staff member is awake and ready to assist a child no matter what needs the child may have or no matter what time a new child arrives. The shelter is made up of 2 sides where the children live and sleep including large living room areas and bedrooms, a spacious dining room in the middle, a laundry room, 2 game rooms, and a conference room. We have a playground area attached to the back of the home with a jungle gym, basketball court, swings, green space, and a covered picnic/pavilion area. Covered walkways provide shelter to our bus ramp for the children. We have an indoor activity center with basketball, volleyball, foosball, air hockey, and a pool table.

Food: Our program’s goal is to meet the immediate food needs of the children by serving tasty, nutritious meals and snacks. Our children are served 3 meals and 2 snacks every day and we average serving 3,550+ meals and snacks per month. Many of the children come from homes where food insecurities exist or the food that is available in the home is of low nutritional quality. We serve meals that meet the dietary guidelines established by the “Healthy Kids Act of 2010” which mandates more fruits and vegetables, more whole grains, less saturated fats, no Trans fats, calorie counts per meal, and lower sodium levels.

Life Skills: Helping Hands of Clemson has recently implemented a new program to teach our young teenage boys life skills that will help prepare them for their future. A few of the skills we have taught so far are: how to maintain healthy relationships, changing a tire on a car, hygiene and self-care, plunging a toilet, work and study habits, cooking, menu and meal planning, shopping, budgeting and how to balance a checkbook, internet and cell phone safety, social skills, career/education planning, getting permits and driver’s license, interview skills. We employ a Life Skills Coordinator that teaches the boys these skills.

Clothing: Many of the children come to us wearing the only clothes they own, and those clothes are often the wrong size or are inappropriate for the season. We must check any clothes that are brought in by the children to make sure the clothing is in good condition. We supply each child with a minimum of three complete outfits that are age, gender and season appropriate as well as socks, underwear, shoes, and toiletry items. In each personal box contains soap, shampoo, deodorant, brush, toothbrush, toothpaste, etc. We also give each child a personal throw blanket and journal.

Access to Healthcare: Helping Hands provides a mental health counselor to provide weekly on-site counseling to our children as well as access to a mental health counselor at school which is provided through SCDMH. This is a wonderful asset to have because that counselor can refer our children to see a psychiatrist if needed. Every child is scheduled a well child check appointment, a dental exam/cleaning appointment, and an eye appointment if needed upon arrival. All of the children are under the care of SC DSS, and all are enrolled in the Medicaid program. We employ a Medical Advocate to work closely with the doctors, dentist, pharmacies, etc.

Access to Education: All of our children are enrolled in the local school district. The children are transported to school via our minibuses. The children attend after care to get additional tutoring and homework help after which we transport them home in the afternoon. We also have numerous amounts of volunteers to come in and assist the children with tutoring and/or homework help. Children with a background of trauma and/or neglect often behind in school. A lot of our children have IEP and 504 accommodation plans. We employ an Educational Advocate to work closely with the schools.

Pet Therapy: We have a house cat named Thursday. In 2018 the children found Thursday roaming around our trash bins. Our staff was able to rescue her and started nursing her back to health. The children named her Thursday because it was Thursday, July 7th, 2018 when she was rescued. Thursday is such therapy for the children. When they are upset, she senses it. When they need quiet time, she cuddles up with them and gives them comfort. She is spoiled by all staff and children and most visitors and volunteers as well. We also rescued a dog, Susuki, in October 2023.  The boys love to come home from school and take him outisde to play. We also have a fish aquarium that seems to relieve stress and has a calming effect. The serene and peaceful effect has many wonderful benefits for children who suffer from anxiety and/or depression.

Extra-Curricular Activities: The children all have a choice to do any extracurricular activities as they like. Football, Robotics, Weightlifting, and ROTC are very common in the teenage boys that we currently have. Our Life Enrichment Cooridnator also plans monthly activity calendars to keep the boys active. Outings may include, bowling, skating, fishing, hiking, out to restaurants, ballgames, indoor trampoline park and much more. In our indoor activity center we have workout equipment to help the boys stay in shape as well as relieve stress. We often plan larger trips such as Dollywood, Carowinds, etc. All staff assist in planning our monthly activities. We are also blessed with a wonderful community that donate tickets to the children including Dabo inviting the kids Clemson football games.