A Message from Our Founders
Yolanda Bates
CEO & Founder
In 2020, my husband and I established Love, Hope & Healing, Incorporated as a community-based non-profit. As I have reflected on my reasoning for beginning this journey, I thought about my own life journey and experiences. Born and raised in West Palm Beach, I have a lifetime of events which have led to my goal of supporting my community.
I myself grew up in an underserved community, where I realized that what I considered normal behavior, was in actuality abnormal and damaging. It was as I became an adult, that I understood and realized the collective experiences of my community were similar to mine. I began to understand that there are healthy means of communicating and healing from past trauma. My own personal experience of attending marriage therapy for over year, leads me to know that counseling and therapy work! It has to be something you want for yourself; you must embrace the tools that are available and be patient.
It was after thinking about the many conversations on how my husband and I could support our community and our respective experiences, that we pursued a non-profit. One which supports the needed conversations to promote awareness of available resources, leading to healthy families and communities. In order for our community and families to thrive and heal, we seek to provide exposure to the resources available to promote and grow healthy behaviors. It is why Love, Hope & Healing was born. Both my own and husband’s life journeys are stories which speak to our understanding and hope for healthy families and community.
Donte Bates
Executive Director & Co-Founder
In 2020, my wife Yolanda and I, established the non-profit, Love, Hope & Healing, Incorporated to support the families of Palm Beach County. My wife and I are both life-long residents of the community and committed to providing support to initiate effective and sustained positive change and growth. The foundation of our non-profit is based upon my lived experiences in my teenage and young adult life. My story provides the framework for the goals and anticipated outcomes for love, hope & healing in our community.
If you had asked me at 16 years old, what my plan was after high school, it is highly doubtful that prison would have been the first words out of my mouth. In fact, words such as arrest, conviction, prison and probation would have not entered my mind at all. However, that is my story and experience and reason for launching this non-profit. Both my wife and I are committed to providing knowledge and opportunities to prevent the children and families of the community suffering through a similar experience such as mine.
Love, Hope & Healing, Inc., was founded to focus on the at-risk and underserved youth and families of our community. Yolanda and I envisioned a non-profit that would create opportunities for sharing tools and resources to guide others in creating a different story and journey. Having successfully completed our first summer youth camp, we are committed to growing the summer camp experience as well as seeking alternative means of increasing mental health awareness, mentor and coach support and wellness. Our summer youth camp focused on providing exposure to both skilled trade and STEM career opportunities, we called it career exploration.
If I had to pick one experience that highlights the meaning the summer camp provided, I would tell you about watching the students learn basic lifesavers training. The moment left a lasting mark on me. I was seeing these young men and women learn training that could potentially help them save another person’s life. It doesn’t get much better than that and is truly what we, Love, Hope & Healing, Inc., are also striving to provide our community.