(La Porte, IN) - Family Advocates has a new home in La Porte. They cut the ribbon and officially put out the welcome mat on Thursday.

 

For a couple of decades, the organization had previously rented a location on Indiana Avenue. According to Executive Director Jackie Dermody, the site served its purpose but was limited. “It was a great space, but it was very small, not a lot of room for movement,” she said.

 

Family Advocates has renovated an historic home at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Osborn St, nearly tripling their space.

 

Dermody was still catching her breath when she spoke to HTNN on Friday. She said the move, a true labor of love, has been in the works for a while. “I almost feel like we had a baby yesterday," she said. "We moved in at the end of June. The whole process started in February of this year. So we are excited to get down to really doing what we want to do and that’s serving families and youth in our community.”

 

Family Advocates offers various programs to support at-risk children and families. A staff of 15 serve as a go-between for social services and families struggling with social-emotional issues. A lot of what they do involves supervised visitation and mentoring. “Anything that we can do to serve,” said Dermody, “that’s our goal.”

 

Family Advocates helps hundreds of children and dozens of families throughout La Porte County. They also just cut the ribbon on a new facility in Michigan City last month.

 

Dermody says the new location in La Porte offers a more home-like atmosphere, with many rooms for families to hang out and feel a sense of normalcy. “As we speak right now," she said, "we have two families-- one family is upstairs cooking dinner; another mom and her daughter are downstairs playing Barbie dolls. We just have great spaces to do that now.”

 

Dermody says the over 6,700-square-foot house was built in 1890. For over 60 years it was a funeral home, before becoming a clothing store. The most recent owner, Deb Cafiero, has become Family Advocates’ largest donor, Dermody said.

 

Family Advocates is buying the house thanks to matching grants from United Way and the Health Foundation of La Porte. But much of the rehab work has been done by community volunteers and members of Dermody’s staff, some of whom were burning the midnight oil to get the place ready for Thursday’s ribbon cutting. “There’s a lot of sweat equity— a lot of painting, hanging, cleaning,” she said. “There’s so much beautiful woodwork here. We were Murphy-oiling everything until 2:00 a.m. Lots of hard work.”

 

NIPSCO, American Renolit, the La Porte County Prosecutor’s Office, and Cardinal Point Technologies made donations to sponsor rooms throughout the facility. Local labor unions also helped out. Dermody said area home builder and State Representative Jim Pressel even put his tool belt on to do some finish work around the house.

 

Dermody could barely contain tears reflecting on the support that Family Advocates has received from the community and the work that her staff is doing. “I’m so amazed at the staff and their commitment to families. It’s pretty amazing really.”