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Contributed photo/Mark Early and Doug Scanlon on the Virginia/Tennessee border Aug. 1 at the start of Hope Tree Family Services’ walks across Virginia. While pairs take turns on segments of the trip, Early and Scanon will walk from Glade Spring to Pulaski next week.

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Walkers hope to ‘fuel an empty heart’

By DAN KEGLEY/Staff

If you see two people wearing green shirts and carrying a gasoline can walking along Highway 11 next week, it won’t mean their vehicle has run out of fuel.
They’re on foot.
No need to call the police.
They already know.
In fact, the police will be among the few who have heard of Hope Tree Family Services, according to Mark Early, spokesman for the Salem-based organization. And that’s the reason Hope Tree representatives are walking.
“We’ve been around since 1890 and it seemed hardly anybody had heard of us,” Early said. “We kicked around some ideas and decided the best way to let people know about us was to go out and tell them. We don’t have resources for a major advertising campaign.”
The Hope Tree walk will take the organization across Virginia in an awareness and fund raising campaign called C to Shining C, beginning at the Cumberland Gap and ending in Chincoteague.
When it’s over on Sept. 14, Hope Tree hopes to have added $150,000 to its coffers and educated some Virginia folks about the organization, according to Early.
“In a nutshell, we do two things,” Early said. “The thing we have done since 1890 is to provide residential care for children who are abused or neglected. We call them at- risk. They have been abused emotionally or physically.”
The organization also operates homes for people with developmental disabilities, he said—people like those with Down Syndrome “who need a little or an extensive amount of help to live on their own.”
He said two of the Developmental Disabilities Ministry homes are in Abingdon.
The homes represent the fastest growing service Hope Tree offers, Early said, and the program has been in place for 15 years.
Early and Doug Scanlon walked the opening C to Shining C segment, beginning Aug.1 in Cumberland Gap and ending in Big Stone Gap, following Route 58. Other walkers are keeping to that road as far as Abingdon, where they’ll pick up Route 11 and follow it to Roanoke. From there Route 460 will take them to the coast for a drive across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel and the last walking segment to Chincoteague.
Early and Scanlon will walk the Glade Spring to Pulaski segment Wednesday, starting at first light and expecting to make Marion by 11:30 a.m. or noon.
“We walk in the mornings before it gets too hot” and traffic increases, he said. For visibility, Early said the walkers wear “deafeningly bright safety-green shirts. The highway department is jealous of us.”
Afternoons and evenings are when the walkers are often invited to speak to civic, professional and church groups, but Early said no plans are set for Marion and he is open for engagements, even on short notice.
Early said the plan is for the last team to walk to the eastern shore of Assateague Island, which lies adjacent to but a bit farther east than Chincoteague. But Chincoteague made the C to Shining C theme work, Early explained.
And the gasoline can they’re carrying like a relay baton? That’s related to the Hope Tree’s internal theme for the big walk – Fueling an Empty Heart, Early said.
Hope Tree’s Web site, http://www.hopetreefs.org, has a section called C to Shining C where a blog has daily updates with pictures and a diary of the walk.
Hope Tree’s history is one of development and growth, adapting programs about once per generation to serve the shifting needs of a changing society.
Its Web site traced its roots to a group of Baptists who in 1887 “began rallying their churches to support the establishment of a Baptist orphanage. As a result, the Baptist Orphanage of Virginia was chartered on Feb. 24, 1890 and “thrived” for the next four decades.
In the 1930s and ‘40s, a change began in the orphanage’s children. Fewer were truly orphaned, but “their families placed them with the Baptist Orphanage because of economic hardships.”
That led to a change in program and name in 1953: Virginia Baptist Children’s Home.
Economic hardships faded over the years as a main reason children went to the home, replaced by abuse and neglect. In 1985 the home became Virginia Baptist Children’s Home & Family Services.
In the ‘90s with its outreach to adults in its Developmental Disabilities Ministry, a new identity began.
“A new name was needed that would be inclusive of all of our programs, open our doors to all denominations, and convey our statewide locations beyond our former, singular “home” title,” Hope Tree’s Web site said. “Thus, HopeTree Family Services became our new name. Hope is short, strong and defines in one word the single greatest benefit we give those who come to us for care. For nearly 20 years, a tree has been part of our logo. A tree is a symbol of strength, shelter, endurance and vibrant life. Keeping the tree as our logo represents the sheltering comfort we provide as well as the strength of an organization that has thrived for over 100 years.”Now, Hope Tree offers these programs plus emergency care for times of crisis, foster care and adoption services, the Gus Mitchell School that educates residents “while they cope with their individual circumstances,” assistance for those in transition to independent living, and the WOODS Programs (Wilderness Outdoor Opportunity Discovery Schools) that teaches discipline through high-adventure learning.