We provide three major programs currently:

1.  Mountain Top Boys Home

Our original mission was to develop a home to house, coach, and educate disadvantaged or maltreated boys and young men referred to us by the Georgia Department of Human Resource’s DFCS (Division of Family and Children Services) or who had been caught up in the State’s DJJ (Department of Juvenile Justice) system.  In our program today, we provide safe and comfortable living facilities and positive examples of family through a loving couple family setting.  We support the boys in their academic education by assisting them in formal schooling in local public schools and by providing them opportunities to gain useful vocational skills.  We also provide continuous counseling and aid our boys and young men in establishing helpful living routines, mastering good self discipline, and developing positive social skills with others.

Our front line is to provide a home to boys in need with a live-in married couple who act as parents to the boys, showing them by example the proper relationship between a couple and how each child should fit into a healthy family.

This is further accomplished through our well trained staff that assists the home’s parents in the daily activities necessary to run an effective children’s home.  These activities include providing support in medical, psychological, and financial needs.

There is no application process for boys to be enrolled at Mountain Top.  Our boys come to us as referrals from the DFCS (as children from families where parents have been adjudicated or identified as maltreating parents) or from the DJJ (as children who have been adjudicated themselves for various minor offenses).  Our boys’ typical ages range from 10 to 17.  At eighteen a boy has "aged" out of the system and is considered independent.

Mountain Top Boys Home mission is to break the cycle of the dysfunctional family for each child.

2.  Family Enrichment Program

While the keystone of Mountain Top has always been the boys’ home and it will always be, there is a need to work with families to help solve the problems that lead to the children’s coming into the system in the first place.  Our unique mountain scene and the facilities at Oakleaf Lodge give us the perfect environment to bring together and coach the adult members of disadvantaged families who are parents of children within Georgia’s DFCS and DJJ systems.  Our life skills course is designed to give the tools needed to create better families.  This includes job, financial, marital, and family counseling in a small casual group setting.  This is the basis of our family enrichment program.

With these families, we work to build the blocks for good relationships and counsel with them to provide the habits and tools to foster a strong family building process.

Our marriage enrichment, family building classes, and outdoor retreats will be offered to all, but our goal is to always find a way to fund those who cannot pay.  An incredible mountain experience can be used to enhance both adult and youth programs.  Each experience for groups at Mountain Top will be engineered to add family enrichment as the key background ingredient.  The mountain can be fun, but we always want there to be a lesson.

This course is a one day event.  The morning session involves financial planning and will vary depending on the needs of the group.  For example, a Sunday school class from an affluent church would be exposed more to investment and retirement planning, while less fortunate attendees who might not even have a checking account would experience an easy to understand basic course in budgeting and spending priorities.  Job help and career planning are also added to the more needy clients.

Families that come to us through DFCS and DJJ will not be charged for this course.

Private groups must have a minimum of four couples with a maximum of sixteen participants.  The charge is $100 per couple.  Overnight accommodations are available for up to eight in Oakleaf Lodge (see our Facilities page)

Sending the boys home to a healthy family is our ultimate focus.

3.  Children in Wilderness

Our weekend wilderness program takes groups of young boys and girls from city environments and gives them a quick course in nature through the grand natural display on parade on our five hundred acre Mountain Top Campus.  Our non-resident bunk house, one mile Azalea Trail, and adjoining three thousand acres of national forest give an opportunity for young boys and girls to be immersed comfortably into the wonders of nature that are only myths to city children.

This picture shows a  huddle around a wild creature (bug or frog) that happened during a Children in Wilderness Outing by New Hope UMC in August 2009.  Now this is success, maybe not to a Boy Scout, but to the inexperienced kids it made their trip and MTBH a roaring success.  This is to say nothing about a black arrow head found that morning that was given to young girl.  Hard to depart with, but who will remember it more.

We currently conduct these events free of charge.  The children are guided through our Azalea Trail and are introduced to a nature experience that they can take with them for a lifetime.  Overnight accommodations are available in our twenty-six bed bunkhouse (see our Facilities page).  To arrange for your group visit call our Director, Dave Lemmerman at (706) 397-8223.

This program is available to all children with priority given to disadvantaged youth.

This page was last updated September 9, 2009.

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