TULSA, Okla. (KTUL) — New Hope, an organization that helps children who have incarcerated parents, just reached its 25th year of service and has helped countless Oklahoma children.

“A lot of my friends didn’t know anything about it, like Ken what are you doing exactly? I’m telling people about it. We had no idea, I’m like, ‘I know,'” said Ken Busby.

While the scenes of a jail or a prison may be commonplace, often times, little thought is given to the children of the incarcerated.ADVERTISING

“In our last calendar year, we helped over 550 kiddos, and our waiting list now has close to 60 kiddos on it,” said New Hope Executive Director Johnny Buschardt.

New Hope just reached its 25th year of service.

“What we do is we try to provide a sense of community, kind of a sense of fellowship,” said Buschardt.

“Often unasked is the question, ‘Who takes care of the kids?'” said artist Chris Sker, helping the kids create artwork that will be auctioned at an upcoming fundraiser for the organization.

“They help with so much,” said Kawanna Gordon. She not only works for New Hope, her children are participants in the program.

“I have a gonna be 12-year-old whose actually been in the program since he was 8, and when he first started, oh he was just having like this really hard time because Dad had been incarcerated like two years,” Gordon said. “Last year, 90% of our kiddos went on to college or some type of post-secondary education, and a lot of those are the first in their family to ever do so,” said Buschardt.

New Hope, an organization that lives up to its name, gives hope to children who definitely need it.

“New Hope is definitely doing great work,” said Sker.

Article by: Burt Mummolo | Click here to visit