01
Small families, not wards
Children live in groups of twelve to fourteen with house parents who sleep in the same building. Nobody is a number on a dormitory list.
About Rising Hope
It started with nine children and a rented kitchen.
Rising Hope Foundation is a children’s home and family-support charity on North Broad Street in Middletown, Delaware. We feed, school, treat and shelter children who have lost their parents — and we help families in crisis stay together in the first place.
2016
founded
118
children in care
8
live-in house parents
Our mission
Give a child the ordinary things, and they will do the extraordinary part themselves.
Three meals. A bed with a lock on the door. School fees paid before the deadline. A nurse who knows their name. Almost everything we do is deliberately unremarkable, because that is what a childhood is made of.
We are not trying to be a large organisation. We are trying to be a reliable one — the same house parents, the same kitchen, the same homework room at four o’clock, for as long as a child needs it. Where a family can stay together with a little help, we would always rather do that than take a child into care.
House rules
Four things we do not compromise on
02
Dignity before fundraising
We do not photograph the children for donation appeals and we use first names only. Their story belongs to them, not to our marketing.
03
Specific asks, plain numbers
We ask for a term of fees, a month of gas, a case of malaria treated. If we cannot tell you what a gift bought, we should not have asked for it.
04
A person on the other end
Every gift is arranged and confirmed by a coordinator. No card forms, no automated checkout, no auto-confirmations.
How we got here
Ten years, told in the things that changed
2016
Nine children, one rented kitchen
Grace takes in nine children after a neighbouring home closes. The first year runs on donated food and a spare room on North Broad Street.
2018
The school fees fund
We start paying tuition directly to schools rather than handing cash to guardians. Thirty-one children enrol that September.
2021
The clinic starts
Nurse Miriam begins a weekly clinic in the back room. Every child gets a health file. Emergency hospital runs drop by half within a year.
2023
Outreach begins
We start supporting at-risk families in their own homes, because keeping a child with their family costs a tenth of residential care.
2026
118 children, 62 households
Nine family-sized rooms, a homework room, a twice-weekly clinic and a Saturday feeding point open to any child who walks in.
The team
Six people, and about forty volunteers who show up anyway
Most of our team live on site or within a few streets of it. If you message us, one of these people replies.
Grace Adeyemi
Founder & Director
Started the home in 2016 with nine children and a rented kitchen. Former school administrator; still teaches the Wednesday reading group.
Daniel Okafor
Programs Lead
Runs education, shelter and the unglamorous list of repairs. Keeps the spreadsheet that decides which roof gets fixed first.
Miriam Tesfaye
Visiting Nurse & Care Coordinator
Holds clinic twice a week, maintains every child’s health file, and argues successfully with district clinics on our behalf.
Joel Brennan
Outreach & Volunteers
Leads the Saturday feeding point and the 62 households in the outreach programme. Coordinates the volunteer rota.
Samuel Idris
Kitchen Lead
Plans menus around iron, protein and what the market did that morning. Publishes the monthly kitchen numbers.
Adaeze Nwosu
House Parent, Family Group 3
Lives alongside fourteen children. Knows precisely who is pretending to be asleep at nine o’clock.
How we handle money
Slow, personal, boring — on purpose
- No card payments and no automatic checkout anywhere on this site.
- Payment details are shared privately with a donor, one-to-one, and never published on this website.
- Every gift is confirmed by a coordinator by hand. We never send automated payment confirmations.
- Gifts run from $50 to $5,000. PayPal and bank transfer are arranged for gifts of $500 and above.
- Monthly updates report what came in and what it paid for, including the unglamorous lines.
Safeguarding
What we will never ask you to do
- We will never ask you to post a gift-card code or PIN publicly, in a comment, or in a group chat.
- We will never ask for your card number, CVV, banking password or one-time code.
- We will never send an unsolicited “payment received” confirmation. If you get one, check with us directly.
- We will never publish a child’s full name, school or photograph in a fundraising appeal.
Anything that looks like us but breaks one of these rules is not us. Check with the care team at risinghopeorphanage@gmail.com.
Give today
Ready to turn this into a plate of food?
Choose an amount, choose a purpose, and finish the gift with a coordinator on WhatsApp or Telegram. Nothing is charged on this website.