Elijah's House of Hope · The Programs
Twenty-one programs. Fourteen can open without the building.
This is the actual work: what runs, on what night, for whom, and who pays for it.
The house is years out. The programs are not. A donated room, a park, and one part-time coordinator run most of this list starting this fall, for roughly $58,000 a year. A man can touch this program every day of the week without ever entering a residential facility.
The Week
What a full week actually looks like.
Every one of these runs in borrowed space. None of it waits on construction.
The Catalog
Six tracks.
Four of them are the Four Pillars a man is rebuilt on. One is the crisis work that has to come first. One is the part nobody funds and everybody needs.
Track A
Stabilize
Crisis services. These run first, because a man cannot do curriculum while he is losing his housing.
The Front Door
Open NowRolling intake, 24-hour response, then weekly
Intake, case management, document recovery, and benefits screening. Identification, birth certificates, court orders, and pay records, recovered in the first two weeks. Every other program is entered through this one.
Funded by: Vucurevich Basic Needs, BHACF capacity
Court Clinic
Open NowWeekly, 2 hours, drop-in
Legal assistance for the father representing himself. Reading your order, the exhibit binder, declarations, support modification, hearing preparation. A volunteer attorney night once a month. Document help, never legal advice.
Funded by: State bar access to justice, IOLTA
The Handoff
Wave 2 · 2027Saturday blocks, plus a weekday exchange window
Supervised visitation and neutral safe exchange, at three levels from staffed handoff to a written observation report for the court. Separate entrances, staggered arrival times, two staff minimum.
Funded by: Access and Visitation through SD child support
Track B
Chalice · Mind
The inner world. Where a man stops white-knuckling it alone.
Morning Coffee Hour
Running TodayDaily, 5:30 AM Mountain, 365 days a year
The front door to everything. Fathers join from across the country and abroad, tell the truth, and start the day not alone.
Funded by: Unrestricted and program revenue
The Round Table
Open NowWeekly, Monday evening
The group meeting for dads and the spine of the whole community program. A closed circle of 8 to 14 men on a 12-week repeating cycle, so a man can walk in any week without being behind. Confidentiality, no advice unless asked, nobody bashes the mother by name.
Funded by: BHACF, Vucurevich, unrestricted
Therapy
Wave 2 · 2027Weekly individual, optional group
Delivered by a licensed partner clinic under written agreement, on site or by telehealth. Coaches never deliver clinical care. That line is what keeps this work safe and insurable.
Funded by: Medicaid via partner, VOCA, SAMHSA
Direct Coaching
Running TodayWeekly, one to one
One-on-one guidance through court, co-parenting, and the rebuild, with Zac or a senior coach. Scholarship seats funded.
Funded by: Program revenue, which funds the free tiers
Track C
Temple · Body
The engine. Cheapest programs on this list and among the most effective.
Iron Hour
Open NowTuesday and Thursday, 6:00 AM
Weight training at a partner gym. A 12-week progression: movement competency, then load, then intensity and a tested lift. Kids 12 and older welcome on Saturdays. Every man leaves with a written program he can run alone in any gym in the country.
Funded by: Gym sponsorship in kind, recreation grants
Fuel
Open NowBiweekly, Thursday evening
Meal prep classes in a community kitchen. Everyone cooks together and everyone leaves with five meals. Eight sessions from the $75 grocery week to cooking with your kid.
Funded by: Food bank partnership, Extension, grocery sponsor
Track D
Vault · Money and Work
From surviving the month to building something. Economic stability is what makes shared parenting possible.
Money Nights
Open NowBiweekly, 8-session cycle
Financial classes. The number you are afraid of, the zero-based budget, the honest debt list, how a support order actually works and when it can be modified, credit repair, and the first legacy move. Real numbers, nobody reads their balance aloud.
Funded by: Bank CRA dollars, credit union community funds
The Budget Table
Open NowMonthly one to one, six months
Budgeting side by side at a laptop with his real accounts open. Not a lecture. Baseline, then five months of execution and adjustment, then handoff to running it himself.
Funded by: Bank CRA dollars, SDCF
Trade Track
Wave 2 · 202712 to 16 week cohort
New skills and a better wage. We do not teach the trade. We do assessment, credential selection against real wage data, enrollment navigation, tools and transportation, employer introductions, and twelve months of retention coaching after he is hired.
Funded by: DOL RESTART, WIOA, community college partnership
Build Track
Wave 2 · 202712-week cohort
For the man building his own thing. Is this a business or a hobby, the one customer, pricing so you actually eat, books from day one, the first ten customers, cash flow, and demo night.
Funded by: SBA PRIME, SBDC partnership
Track E
Kingdom · Fatherhood and Kids
The reason any of the rest of it matters.
Fathering Foundations
Open NowWeekly, 10-week cohort
The fatherhood class. Presence over provision, what your child actually needs at this age, discipline without fear, co-parenting with someone you are angry at, the two-house kid, repair after you blow it, and the letter to your child. A court-acceptable completion certificate is a design goal.
Funded by: Access and Visitation now, FORGE Fatherhood 2027
Connection Hour
Open NowWeekly, Friday evening
Connection time with kids. A warm room with a rug, board games, an art table, a homework corner, and dinner. Deliberately unstructured. Most separated fathers have parenting time and nowhere to use it, and a public park in January is not a place.
Funded by: Vucurevich, BHACF youth and families
Father/Kid Saturdays
Open NowBiweekly, Saturday morning
Father and kid activities. One shared project or outing per session: build a birdhouse, fishing morning, bike repair, a service project, fire building, pinewood derby. They make something together or they go somewhere together.
Funded by: National Recreation Foundation, per-event sponsors
Raising Modern Knights
Wave 2 · 2027Weekly, alongside The Round Table
Mentorship for the children, in age bands from Squire to Worthy, each ending in a rite of passage. Runs at the same hour as the dads’ group so a father and his child arrive together and leave together.
Funded by: OJJDP mentoring, BHACF Youth Mental Wellness
High Conflict Co-Parenting
Wave 2 · 20276-week cohort
For the hardest custody situations. What you control, communication that cannot be used against you, documentation without obsession, and keeping the child out of the middle of it.
Funded by: Access and Visitation, FORGE Fatherhood
Track F
The Wild and The Brotherhood
Where a man stops being a client and becomes somebody’s friend. Retention lives here.
Brotherhood Night
Open NowMonthly, third Thursday
Men only. No kids, no partners, no curriculum. Steaks and a fire, a shop project, cards, a range day, or a guest with something worth saying. Twenty structured minutes and then it is just men.
Funded by: Sponsorships and unrestricted giving
Day Excursions
Open NowMonthly, alternating men-only and family
Black Hills hikes, fishing, range days, service projects, the Badlands. Day trips only to start: signed waivers, two adults minimum, no technical terrain. The safety record built here is what makes the overnights possible later.
Funded by: National Recreation Foundation, gear in kind
Back to Basics Camps
Wave 3 · After the houseTwo or three per year, 2 to 4 nights
Overnight wilderness for father and child pairs, plus a separate men’s expedition. Permits, certified guides, and specialty insurance. This follows the day-trip record rather than preceding it.
Funded by: Recreation and family foundations, fees with scholarships
The Cost
Fourteen programs. Fifty-eight thousand dollars.
That is a full year of weekly programming across mind, body, money, fatherhood, and brotherhood. One half-time coordinator is the only payroll line. Everything else is ingredients, gas cards, gym time, and art supplies.
$58,000
Full year, Wave 1
Three to five local grants cover the whole thing.
$580
Per person, per year
Across an expected 40 fathers and 60 children.
1
Half-time hire
The difference between a plan and a program.
Why this sequence
The two federal grants that fund this work at scale both closed for 2026 and reopen in 2027. Applying then with a plan puts us against applicants who show participant counts and twelve-month outcomes. Applying with a year of documented service behind us puts us in a different category. That is the entire argument for opening this fall instead of waiting for a building.
Most of this needs a room and a person, not a building.
A church with five free evenings. A gym owner willing to give up one hour, twice a week. An attorney willing to take one night a month. A funder willing to cover a half-time coordinator. Any one of those moves this from paper to Monday.
Want to run these where you live? See the chapter model.