Baptist Children's Home
and Family Services

BCHFS SUCCESS STORIES:
Garrison Cottage:
A Place of Prayer and Support

Garrison Cottage in Carmi, Illinois.

The boys are all involved in group counseling sessions which prove beneficial in their daily lives.

Garrison Cottage’s housefather Chet prays alongside his boys before the evening meal.

The Garrison Cottage on the Carmi Campus is named after the late Laura Garrison. Proceeds from her estate funded its construction and furnishings in 1961.

It was dedicated on July 4 of that same year to be a warm and welcoming haven for those in need. The Garrison Cottage, forty-seven years later, remains a sanctuary and home for eight teen-age boys ranging in ages 14-17 years.

Full-time houseparents, Chet and Bobbi Keys, began with BCH in 1996. In 2006 they retired but found they missed their work with the boys at BCH and came out of retirement this year.

Bobbi explains, “Chet was driving a coal truck and I was working part-time. We were never together. Then we read about the opening at Garrison Cottage in the newsletter so we decided to return to house parenting. Now our time is not just spent together, it is spent doing something that is rewarding and spiritually uplifting.”

Chet and Bobbi are beacons of hopeful and prayerful direction for the young lads who call Garrison Cottage home. After every school day from 3:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Chet and Bobbi conduct a ‘rap session’ with the boys.

“They really like it. It provides a place for good communication and it gives them a sense of family and togetherness,” relates Chet.

Bobbi adds, “We want to hear what is going on—good or bad. Kids are kids.”

There is one young fifteen-year-old fellow in their care that Bobbi refers to as “one of the sweetest kids we have ever had.” His mother has passed away due to ailments resulting from domestic abuse at the hands of his father. Apparently, not just his mother but everyone in the family proved to be a victim of his maltreatment.

His grandmother adopted him but her guiding and loving hand wasn’t enough to keep him out of trouble. He got into drugs, alcohol and hanging with the wrong crowd. He had severe outbursts of temper and couldn’t be reasoned with. At her wit’s end, his grandmother sent him to BCH.

Through the BCH behavior point system (where kids are awarded or deducted points based on their behavior and completion of chores) and consistent counseling in anger management, this young man is learning to control his temper.

Bobbi laments, “His anger is a cry for help. I don’t think he has ever been praised. He just needs someone to love and value him.”

He is working hard, making great strides and thriving on the Keys’ love and attention.

He has discovered, like so many other young men, that life in the Garrison Cottage is just the ramp needed to turn a life in the right direction. It is a very structured existence with wake-up at 5:00 a.m. followed by breakfast, chores and devotion before the school bus arrives at 7:30 a.m. Evenings are consumed with dinner, homework, Bible study, tutoring, showers and a bit of free time before
lights out at 9:30 p.m.

This type of structure is foreign to many of these kids and provides a healthy foundation for making better life choices.

Bobbi and Chet concur, “There is no such thing as a bad kid, only a kid who has made some bad choices.”

Each boy is counseled through a group or individually by the boys’ therapist William Foote. William has been with BCH since 2001 when he and his wife, Jenn, were houseparents at Otho Williams Cottage. He was an Aftercare Worker before becoming their therapist.

Chet and Bobbi consistently provide activities that encourage everyone in the cottage to feel more like a family. The rap sessions provide an open forum for discussion. Meal times begin with prayer; followed by friendly banter. Then the Garrison “family” attends the Ten-Mile Baptist Church in McLeansboro on Wednesdays for Bible study and Sundays for worship services.

The support kids get at BCH is full circle—educational, psychological, emotional and spiritual. Chet reflects, “Sometimes you have to go beyond the call of duty but the rewards can be so much
more than you expect.”

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