D.E.B. Project is currently selling tickets for its first fashion show fundraiser. The event will take place Saturday, April 6, from 10 a.m to noon at Kindred North, located at 10889 AR Highway 72 in Centerton. The event will include guest speakers, the latest styles form the D.E.B. Project modeled by adopted children and adult models, finger foods and silent auction items.
Tickets are $15 and can be purchased at the D.E.B. Project store in Bentonville.
Sammy Laney has a passion for helping foster children and other children who are often in need of the basic essentials in life.
It’s a passion she has because her own best friend, Deborah, who was adopted, grew into an adult who never received counseling for abuse she received as a child. Never sharing her burden with friends, Deborah committed suicide in 2012.
“I had no idea she had been abused,” Sammy says. “When I heard that she was dead, I was completely devastated because she was one of the strongest women I’d ever known.”
As a way to honor her friend’s memory, Sammy began D.E.B. (Deserving, Enriched, Blessed) Project, a clothing ministry she initially ran out of her own home. She says the projects started as a way to reach out and help the foster community. She says that most children coming into the foster system only have the clothes on their back and no other possessions.
Sammy’s heart is to help every child in need with clothing essentials. The project’s mission is to fill the unmet gap in clothing needs to children who are victims of either disasters, economic distress or are entering the foster care system. To do this, volunteers work closely with the school systems and foster families in NWA to identify the children in need in the community.
“Every child is deserving to be blessed. If we don’t have what the kids need, then we fail,” Sammy says.
She says the hope is that providing some basic needs like clothes, shoes, and toiletries, will allow foster and adoptive parents to have the money to also get children the counseling and therapy they may need from traumas and abuses in their past.
Sammy says she has received affirmation and confirmation from God every step of the way that the project is her calling. The nonprofit is completely ran by volunteers, even Sammy doesn’t receive a paycheck. She says God has remained faithful in providing the volunteers to help keep the store running.
When the project outgrew Sammy’s home, God helped her find a store at 1140 N. Walton Blvd, Suite 6, in Bentonville with room for storage and consignment space for used men’s, women’s and children’s clothing. Proceeds from the store go to the mission of helping the area children.
Sammy says the project has helped more than 1,000 children since it began.
“Every day we see so many who need help,” she says. “Parents say they are blessed because they know they are not alone. Often they come to me just to talk or to find other resources they need.”
And God has given her a bigger vision for the future of the D.E.B. Project: of Him eventually providing her with a space that not only includes room for retail, but also offers respite options for foster families like a gym or a coffee shop, on-site therapy for kids, an event center, rooms for training, and possibly even housing for the interns that currently receive scholarships to help out at D.E.B. Project.
Sammy knows God will provide if this is His will for the project, but she also knows she will continue to depend on help from the community to see this vision come to fruition.
Currently, Sammy says she is always in need of volunteers to help in the store sorting and stocking items. Volunteers are also often needed to run errands for the organization or fill other needs. She says she would love to see more church groups volunteering together to help the D.E.B. Project.
Also, donations are always needed. The greatest donation needs are new underwear in packaging (especially toddler sizes), new socks in packaging and hygiene products such as shampoos, soaps, toothpastes, toothbrushes, etc.
Used clothing in good condition (no holes or stains) from infant sizes to adult sizes is accepted for the store. Shopping at the store also helps.
Sammy says she has definitely had times of discouragement during her journey to create and sustain D.E.B. Project, but that God continues to keep the organization going through his grace and mercy.
Her favorite verse is Joshua 1:9 which says “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
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