Thompson High School Volleyball Team SERVE Event at Hatching Hope. The team packed overnight recovery kits, customized teddy bears, and left notes of hope and encouragement on the boxes that will be delivered to victims of disaster.
Hope is the Thing with Feathers
Alabaster’s nonprofit Hatching Hope lives up to its name.
By Carmen Brown
For some, it’s a fire. For others, it’s a storm. But when tragedy strikes, amidst the devastation and sudden loss, people everywhere need help. And they need hope.
Keli Lynch Wright knows this feeling all too well. Right before Easter Sunday 2010, she lost her home to an apartment fire. With a background in the apartment industry and having never forgotten the compassion of her community, a few years later in 2016, she and her then 11-year-old son Ashton founded Hatching Hope, a nonprofit disaster relief and humanitarian aid organization based in Alabaster.
Nine years later, Hatching Hope is going strong, now having served more than one million families.
Assistant Director Jessica Trahan has been with the organization since January 2019. Trahan, who has her degree from the University of Alabama focusing on nonprofit communications,, worked in the apartment industry throughout college and witnessed firsthand some of the crises the residents she worked with faced. “I grew up in Tuscaloosa, and I was there when the tornado came through in April 2011,” Trahan says. “I’ve always been interested in helping people who have been through emergency situations like natural disasters.”
Trahan says although Hatching Hope has helped disaster survivors throughout the Southeast and even the Bahamas, most of their work focuses on the Alabaster and Shelby County area. “When the tornado came through Shelby County in January 2023, we worked with several local churches to provide critical recovery supplies to families that were impacted,” Trahan says. “The tornado hit the Cross Creek community that was directly behind our store when we were located in Pelham, so we were a dropoff point for donations, and then we would distribute the supplies.”
Trahan says Hatching Hope also works with the local schools to do serve events, where students assist them in packing kits at their facility. “Just recently the Thompson High School volleyball team did a serve event, where they packed kits, customized teddy bears, and decorated our kit boxes with notes of hope and encouragement.”
One of Hatching Hope’s biggest fundraisers is Little Kids Doing Big Things, where children can make activity kits for other children who are survivors of natural disasters. As part of the project, kids also bring teddy bears to the other kids. “The kids can name it after someone, like a family member or a pet,” Trahan says.
Trahan says Hatching Hope has also been a resource for Shelby County schools to call on when needs arise for students and their families. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Trahan says Hatching Hope partnered with Matthew 25 Ministries and Southern Wellness (an Alabaster-based health clinic) to provide hand sanitizer, masks, sanitizing spray, and other PPE supplies to every school in Shelby County and donated cleaning supplies to the Shelby County Board of Education on multiple occasions. “We hosted a PPE drive and free COVID testing to residents of Shelby County,” Trahan says. “We also delivered hand sanitizer and PPE supplies to the Shelby County Sherriff’s office during COVID-19.”
In addition to offering immediate assistance, Hatching Hope also provides a resource list to survivors who need help finding new housing or who need post-trauma mental health services. Furry friends are also not forgotten, as Hatching Hope also brings blankets, pet food and bowls, toys, leashes, and other needed items.
Trahan says that November through March, especially around Thanksgiving and Christmas, brings extra challenges for Hatching Hope, as it is their busiest time of year for helping survivors of apartment fires. “Two years ago, a large apartment fire occurred in Hoover right before Christmas that displaced many families, and we collected and distributed disaster relief supplies and Christmas gifts for the children that were impacted,” Trahan says.
Trahan adds that right before Thanksgiving, in Atlanta, a massive apartment fire displaced over 500 people. Hatching Hope worked with the United Cajun Navy to provide families with winter coats and care packages. “It’s very humbling to witness families lose everything right during the holidays,” Trahan says.
Trahan says that people in the community looking to help can visit the organization’s store, The Marketplace by Hatching Hope, located in Alabaster at 376 Shady Acres Road. “The store is how we fund most of our work,” Trahan says. “We get corporate donations as well as proceeds from sales to customers in the store. They’ve made a huge impact, and I hope as we grow, we can continue to make a difference.”
The Marketplace by Hatching Hope, which opened in 2020, accepts and appreciates donations at the store by appointment. They sell appliances, HVAC, lighting, tools, bedding/linens, janitorial and maintenance supplies, toys, boutique items, gifts, and more. Store hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.
Trahan looks forward to seeing Hatching Hope make a difference for many years to come. “We are so proud to call Alabaster our home, and we will continue to look after and take care of our home community,” Trahan says.
Hatching Hope is currently looking for local volunteers both at the Marketplace and to help with humanitarian work. Monetary donations are also always welcome. For more information, call 205-624-2135 or visit HatchingHopeCares.org.
