The kitchen smells faintly of fresh paint and possibility. In the bedrooms, quilts in shades of blue, pink, and green wait neatly folded at the foot of new beds. The walls are still settling into their colors, but Pastor Jackie Gunn sees something far greater than paint and furniture.
“This is their home,” she said softly, pausing in the living room. “This is where they’ll be living. It’s not just a building. It’s not just a program. This is their house.”
Gunn chuckled as she admitted she never thought she would be here, opening a new chapter when she once imagined slowing down. “I thought I was retiring to get ready to chill out,” she said with a grin. “But God had jokes. He gave me this assignment.”
That assignment is Rose’s House of Hope, a Clinton home created for young women aging out of foster care. It is a place not only to stay, but to be taught, guided, and loved into independence.
For Gunn and her partner in the mission, longtime Clinton City Schools executive assistant Nacole Hayes, the need is painfully obvious. Each year, teenagers leave foster care and step into adulthood without the guidance most 18-year-olds desperately need.
“At 18, even with two great parents, you don’t know everything,” Gunn said. “So imagine being on your own, no one to show you the way. That’s a prescription for disaster. Some mistakes you can recover from. Some you can’t.”
That is why the House of Hope will only hold six girls at a time. Not because space is limited, but because intimacy matters.
“If you have too many, someone gets lost,” Gunn said. “We want to really know them. Walk with them.”
In their rooms, each girl will even have her own color, her own shade of bedding, her own closet markers. “That way, no mix-ups, no fights over whose is whose,” Gunn explained. “You have blue, you have pink, you have green. It is yours. Peace starts small.”
The heart of the home might just be the kitchen. Gunn smiled as she motioned to the counters. “We are going to teach them how to cook here,” she said. “Not lobster or filet mignon. But spaghetti, chili, the basics. Everyone should know how to cook a meal, clean a house, and stretch a dollar.”
For Hayes, those lessons are critical. “If you just let somebody figure it out by trial and error, they are going to hit a lot of walls,” she said. “And some of those walls hurt. We want to equip them with the basics so they are not fumbling through life.”
The “basics” stretch far beyond food and laundry. The girls will learn how to budget, how to apply for jobs, how to use computers to fill out online applications. Gunn has mentors lined up from all walks of life, mothers, lawyers, and engineers, ready to teach skills, share wisdom, and most importantly, model what love and stability look like.
“I have a young woman who used to work for Lenovo, now getting her master’s at Duke in engineering,” Gunn said. “She jumped at the chance to help. Everyone I have asked has seen the vision and said yes.”
The women believe that modeling is the real ministry.
“If they do not see us tearing each other down, if they see us speaking kindly, working through problems, that is what they will learn,” Gunn said. “I told my kids, if you ever hear me cuss your father out, then you are free to do it. But you will not. So you do not.”
Hayes nodded. “Conflict will happen, that is life. But it is about how we handle it. We will sit down, talk, and move forward. That is a skill too.”
Her voice softened as she reflected on her own upbringing. “I grew up watching my grandmother and mother take care of people who were not even family. Kids got off the bus at our house and were treated just like us. That is where I learned, you meet the need. That is what Christ did. He met the physical need, then the spiritual.”
While the home will provide love and security, it will not be without rules. Curfews, sign-in and sign-out sheets, and a ban on smoking, vaping, drinking, or fighting are part of the deal.
“We are not an extension of foster care,” Gunn said firmly. “This is not a holding tank. This is an opportunity. And with opportunity comes accountability.”
Every girl will come through referral from DSS, and every girl must agree to the expectations before moving in. “They have to want this,” Hayes said. “We cannot force it. But if they want to change their lives, we will walk with them every step of the way.”
When asked about the ultimate goal, Gunn did not hesitate. “That they see Christ in us and want what we have,” she said. “That is number one. And I want to do this so well that it is replicated, because there are so many more out there who need this.”
Hayes sees it as a ripple effect. “We are impacting these young ladies so they can go out and impact others,” she said. “So many negative ripples are already out there. We want to start a positive one. One life changing another life, changing another.”
Neither woman claims the journey as her own. Both point to a circle of supporters who helped bring Rose’s House of Hope into being, including church members, mentors, maintenance helpers, family, and friends.
“I want to thank my Faith Temple family,” Gunn said. “My parents, who taught me what love looks like. And the DSS worker who told me, ‘Miss Gunn, you have to do this.’”
Hayes added her thanks for her husband’s encouragement, her neighbor Adrienne Carter for connecting her with Gunn, and Clinton City Schools for blessing her transition from education into this new role.
“I could not do this without that support,” she said. “We are one, and he said, ‘If God put this on your heart, I am with you.’ That made all the difference.”
An open house is coming, but not yet.
“I do not want the girls to feel like they are on display,” Gunn said. “We will celebrate with the community later. First, we want them to settle in, to feel at home. Because that is what this is, their home.”
For now, the house is waiting. Beds are made, closets stand ready, and the kitchen waits to fill with the scent of simmering chili and laughter. Rose’s House of Hope is more than a house. It is a new beginning for six young women, and a beacon for many more to come.
“This is an opportunity,” Gunn said. “And I want them to take it as such. We are here to give them hope.”