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Hope and Thrive Academy, a program that provides post-secondary education to adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, visited with the Hamblen County Republican Women recently.

Hope & Thrive Academy is a program of Holston United Methodist Home and is located inside First Presbyterian Church in Morristown.

Tracy E. Lewis, director of the academy, visited with the organization to highlight the importance of having the academy in the area.

“We planted roots in the Morristown Area 10 years ago under the name Hidden Treasures Academy and then we realized we were so hidden that no one knew we existed so we changed the name to Hope and Thrive because our students have hope and they are learning to thrive,” Lewis said,

“I created this organization after seeing the need for transitional services for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. After they graduated from high school there were limited opportunities for them to transition into the community.

“After seeing the need myself along with a few retired special education teachers and the Director of Special Service at UT Knoxville came together created the program.”

The academy focuses on teaching students independence so they can transition into the community.

“In our program we focus on services that maximize independence because we hear from families so many times say ‘If I die what will happen to my child with a disability?’” Lewis said. “Our program is designed that if something were to happen to their caregiver the individual would be independent within the community.”

Each morning as students arrive to the academy they begin their day with their first program, chapel.

“Spiritual formation and daily devotion is really important to us,” Lewis said. “We believe seeking first the kingdom of God but we also believe that our students have a purpose and that there are no disabled souls.

“They teach us so much about the love of God and forgiveness and we want to speak to their spirt through daily chapel.

“Our chapel is led by local pastors and ministers from the community because we want our students to connect and build relationships with members of the community.”

Book Club is a way for students to strengthen their reading skills while also having conversations on the topic they are reading about.

“We offer language arts and book club,” Lewis said. “We call it book club because that’s way more fun than calling it language arts or English.

“In book club we encourage them and keep them reading because for them it’s like riding a bike if you don’t continue practicing and doing you will forget how to ride and reading is a very important skill to have as an independent person within the community.”

“We allow them to give us feedback on what they would like to read. This semester we are reading a book on Temple Grandin who was an inventor who was born with Autism and in the book she talks about how she had to self-regulate her emotions. This allows us to open a conversation with our students on how they regulate their emotions when they are upset.”

Through the academy’s life training and personal finance programs students learn how to live on their own while also how to save money.

“We offer life skills training,” Lewis said. “If they are going to be independent then they need to learn how to cook and do their own laundry.

“When we first started we didn’t offer life skills training but we began working with families and now we have several students who are ready to live on their own and currently 50% of students have their own apartments and life semi alone.

“When we started offering this program to our students our first student just bought their own home. He saved up enough money from working at Lincoln Memorial University and made a down payment on a house. Do you know how rewarding that is for anybody to buy a home let alone someone with an intellectual disability.”

Its job skills program allows students to connect with local business and gain employment.

“We offer job skills training which is very significant because going in we had the statics that over 70% with disabilities were unemployed and that number has not changed in three decades,” Lewis said.

“Since we started the program and started working with businesses within the community we have maintained 80% of our students holding employment, and some have been employed since 6 years.

“We have a music and arts program because they may not be able to express themselves verbally but they can do so through the arts,” she said.

The organization collects tuition for students but accepts donations to fund scholarships for students.

“Our income comes through tuition and fees, but all of our students receive scholarships and those come from two fundraisers. We also have sponsors who sponsor a scholarship for a student and then we also receive personal and corporate monetary gifts.”

For more information on the Hope and Thrive Academy or how to donate to the organization please call 423-787-8753.