Acres Of Love Inc

We exist to rescue children and create families in South Africa. Our team is focused on meeting the complex needs of our children with particularized care. Full-time house parents are supported by in-home assistants, therapists, social workers, management, and staff in Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa. Together, we are focused on the day-to-day care of infants and children residing in our Family Homes. We work with top medical professionals and experts on HIV, FASD, and Early Intervention Therapies to ensure our children have everything they need to thrive.

In 1998, Acres of Love founders, Ryan and Gerda Audagnotti, lived with their young family in South Africa when they saw an incredible need outside their front door. They felt compelled to be a part of the solution for the wave of children being orphaned by the AIDS crisis. Their first family home in Johannesburg was currently being used as a rental property. A solidly built home, it was nestled on a tree-lined street with mature trees in the yard. It was close to great schools and had served the Audagnottis well in those first years of raising their family. Both Ryan and Gerda knew that this home could welcome children in need, so they began to file all the necessary paperwork with the local government to become licensed as a care home.

They enlisted the help of family, friends, and care givers to help them rescue five toddlers who had been abandoned at a local hospital. Nervous as they drove to the hospital, they felt the weight of this calling as they filled their car with little ones who were all alone. When the babies were all home and tucked into bed, the Audagnottis realized that this decision would be one they would commit to for the entire childhood of these children. Once abandoned, these children would grow up in the love and care of family. As the days passed, these babies began to transform the neighborhood. They went for walks in strollers and neighbors became curious about the home with all the babies. As people got to know each of the children, barriers were broken that had been ingrained in the neighborhood since apartheid. Since 1998, Acres of Love has welcomed over 400 children to our care. We have opened 40 Forever Homes in Johannesburg and Cape Town. We have a team of 160 full-time employees who serve the needs of more than 200 children.

Each year 3,500 babies are abandoned in South Africa and for every 3 of those babies, only one is found in time. They are abandoned in fields, long drop toilets, with strangers on the street, and on busy roads. The lucky ones are left in hospitals or at police stations because they have a much higher rate of survival. There are long-standing stigmas against children with special needs in South Africa, and many children with special needs are ostracized, abandoned, or abused. They are left without educational options and are often institutionalized. These most vulnerable children are the ones who need us most. More than 40% of our children at Acres of Love live with moderate to severe special needs including HIV, autism, Down Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, Paralysis, hear-ing or visual impairments, club feet, hydrocephalus, CHARGE Syndrome, Prader Willi Syndrome, and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

Beneath every decision is the question- What would we do for our own children? We offer each child particularized care based on their unique needs so they can thrive and reach self-sufficient adulthood or remain with us throughout their life if they have intense special needs.

Current Accomplishments:
1. A continued focus on our Emergency Medical and Special Needs (EMSN) Program to offer excellent care for our most vulnerable children. This includes offering the very best medical care and ensuring each child has an educational path for success. This program funds anything extra our children might need based on medical or special needs. It pays for life-saving surgeries but also homeschool academies to serve our children who don’t have educational opportunities that meet their needs. It includes paying for important occupational, physical, and speech therapies so our littlest ones have the best chance of lifelong success in reaching developmental milestones.

2. Our second focus this past year was to build out our infrastructure in our newest region, Cape Town. We opened our Mayfield Home in response to a request from the local government for us to open a centralized headquarter to store all our Cape Town records and create a place to facilitate government meetings with social workers and other service providers as we are seen as a leader in our field. We are currently in a phase of expansion in Cape Town as we open a new region and multiple new Family Homes in the Stellenbosch region to meet the incredible need for vulnerable children there.

3. Our third area of focus was launching our young adults into self-sufficient adulthood. Many of the babies who arrived to our care in the first years of operation are now young adults and it has been a new endeavor to encourage each of them to launch into self-sufficient adulthood. We have worked to empower each of them as they have worked hard and shown determination and courage to become positive agents of change in South Africa. We have adult children who are now living independently and working in finance, retail, beauty, IT, and food industries in South Africa. This past year we began a safety net fund specifically for our launched young adults to help them furnish first apartments, buy clothing needed for new jobs, and any tangible needs as they begin their adulthood journey. As we have welcomed many children with special needs, we know that they will require a slower launch or care throughout their lifetime. So we have opened two Special Needs Advancement Center (SNAC) Homes to offer them a place to launch where they can maintain healthy diets and daily routines, find fulfillment that comes from working with their hands, experience family belonging and have every opportunity for success.

Goals for the Current Year:
1. Providing basic needs with love and dignity
Ensure the very best family-based care to each child at Acres of Love including residence in a safe and loving home with their own bed and clothes, three nutrient-rich meals each day (and snacks), a safe backyard, and extended family support relationships.

2. Provide access to particularized medical care
Address all medical needs and offer well-visits, ARV’s, early intervention therapies (speech, physical, occupational, sensory, etc), and comprehensive dental care. Over 40% of our children have special needs including HIV/ AIDS, tuberculosis, cerebral palsy, cancer, down syndrome, paralysis, autism, hearing impairment, CHARGE syndrome, spina bifida, Prader-Willi syndrome, Hemophilia, Ehler-Danlos syndrome, and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD).

3. Provide access to particularized educational care
Create and continue to update an individualized plan for each child’s unique learning needs. Each child attends our Acres of Love Play Group or a local preschool when ready. When possible, our children attend local public schools. If needed due to Learners Special Education Needs (LSEN), we partner with private schools or homeschool academies.

4. Replicate our sustainable model program to open more homes and rescue more children
Increase our ability to accept children with moderate to very severe medical needs while maintaining excellence in particularized care.

5. Empower Team Members with ongoing training to encourage best practices in care
Continue to train and development current and new team members to offer the very best medical, emotional, nutritional, and educational care to each child at Acres of Love.

1. Emergency Medical and Special Needs (EMSN) Program. This program exists to offer our children the very best extra medical care. This extra care includes surgeries, hospital stays, early intervention therapies, one-to-one caregivers when needed, customized wheelchairs, limb braces, hearing aids, special education, and everything needed for a child to thrive.

2. Education Fund. With more than 200 children, many can attend local public schools but many, due to learning challenges, require smaller class sizes and private school options. We also have a growing number of children who are looking to attend local colleges, trade schools, and universities to gain skills needed to join the South African workforce.

3. Launching Fund. As we continue to launch young adults into self-sufficient adulthood, we want to offer them the love and support of family. While South Africa releases children from care at 18 years old, we understand that a set age of adulthood doesn’t recognize the uniqueness of each child. It doesn’t consider the trauma, educational gaps, or developmental delays they may have experienced before coming to our care. Because of this, we work to see each child uniquely as we help them launch at a pace that works for them.

Through our launch transition plan, we empower our young adults as we help them learn to secure stable employment, save money and use a bank account, pay monthly rent, navigate transport to and from work, cook healthy meals, thrive on their own and build a network of support.

We have built intentional structure to help them maintain family connections and relationships. We know that experienced loss, trauma, and abandonment can create vulnerability for young adults, and we work to scaffold them with rhythms of connection. We have regular extended family events that our young adults continue to join, as well as special family holidays and birthday celebrations. We want our adults to understand that they will always be a part of our Acres of Love family, and that their connection to family remains long after they launch. Our launch fund is set up to meet tangible needs to support our young adults as they become self-sufficient members of their communities.

While most of our young adults will launch, our young adults living with special needs require a slower launch or will remain with us throughout their lifetime. To best serve them we operate a Special Needs Advancement Center in Cape Town and our Indlu Yami Family Home in Johannesburg. At these Family Homes, our focus is on mentorship, quality of life, engagement with community resources, and family structure.

4. Nutrition Fund. We know that offering nutrient-rich meals that are filled with produce help our children thrive. Many have experienced past malnutrition before coming to Acres of Love. Others have medical needs that require healthy diets for our children to respond well to medical treatments. Our house parents are committed to offering three healthy meals each day for our children. Currently we are feeding three wholesome meals each day to over 200 children and 80 house parents.

5. Early Intervention Fund. We are committed to each child's developmental success. Many children who come to our care have developmental delays that will impact their daily quality of life as well as their educational journey. We partner with local Speech, Physical, Occupational, and Sensory Therapists to offer each child a particularized approach to meeting developmental milestones in a way that works for their unique needs. Our house parents are also trained to offer daily therapeutic exercises at home with our children.

Johannesburg, Benoni, Cape Town, and Stellenbosch, South Africa

Once orphaned and/or abandoned, our model welcomes children into family homes and they become daughters and sons. Our model of care allows our children to thrive, as we maintain healthy routines, offer the very best nutritional care, provide therapeutic activities, personalized educational plans, and address past loss and trauma. We are changing the world for each child in our care, and know that the ripple effects of creating healthy families will impact the larger communities we serve. Thank you for empowering our team through your generosity as we continue to serve the most vulnerable children in South Africa.

We focus on excellence in care in every detail. Our team is bringing strategic solutions to complex problems plaguing the most vulnerable children in South Africa- those orphaned and/or living with disabilities.