The work
Families Renewed, Inc.
A faith-based 501(c)(3) built on a plain observation: families rarely come apart all at once. They come apart quietly, over months, in the window before anyone official is paying attention. That window is where we work.
I founded the organization and serve as its chairman and chief executive. We are based in York, Pennsylvania.
It is the mission of Families Renewed, Inc. to provide relief to children and families suffering from the trauma caused by the break down of the family structure by renewing the family support systems that are at the core of a child’s sense of safety and security.
Programs
What we are building
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Suicide & Self-Harm Prevention
Our largest undertaking, and where most of our effort and fundraising goes today. It houses LifeBST, along with parental support and referrals for families whose children are struggling.
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LifeBST
A behavioral skills framework built as a school curriculum. When it is finished it will span kindergarten through twelfth grade, with college-level coursework available as well. It is non-clinical skills education, not treatment, and it is designed so that what a student learns at twelve still serves them at forty.
lifebst.org -
Finding Home
Homelessness prevention and early intervention for families — landlord negotiation, emergency grants, and budget work, aimed at the point before a household loses its housing rather than after.
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Writing A New Story
Support for children carrying the aftermath of abuse or neglect, and prevention work aimed at the patterns that otherwise pass from one generation to the next.
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Leading With Love
Our parenting course, built in three parts. Mothers and fathers are not handed the same job, so they do not get the same course — and then the third part puts them back together.
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Courageous Fatherhood Complete
Eight facilitated sessions for fathers, integrating what neuroscience knows about anger, adolescence, attachment, and repair. Launched 2026.
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Graceful Motherhood In development
The mothers’ course, currently being written.
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Parenting Together Planned
Brings the two together and teaches couples to parent as a unified pair rather than two people improvising separately. To be developed once Graceful Motherhood is finished.
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Mason-Dixon Ride for Life
Our annual motorcycle ride for the prevention of suicide and self-harm in children and young adults, with all proceeds supporting the work.
masondixonrideforlife.org
Also
Behind the wheel
I drive a motorcoach. It is not a side note to the rest of this — it is where a good deal of the mentoring actually happens. On a school bus I had the same kids for an entire season. On a motorcoach I usually have them for a week, though it is a week spent together from breakfast to lights out. Either way it buys a kind of trust that no program design can manufacture, and it is a standing reminder that prevention work is mostly just paying attention on an ordinary day. The students I drove years ago are adults now, and many of those relationships have lasted — which is the whole argument for this work, made better than I could make it.