A new youth rehabilitation center called Proverb Academy will open in Morehouse, Missouri in the coming weeks. This new facility will help local kids in need.
The Proverb Academy will be located in the old Morehouse Elementary building, which was recently closed as a school. The students that once attended Morehouse Elementary now go to school in nearby Sikeston, Missouri.
Proverb Academy is a youth rehabilitation center and a contract provider with the Department of Mental Health and the children’s division of Social Services. Youth from ages six to 17 will be able to live in the Morehouse Elementary building and receive care. Assistant administrator Russell Gadberry hopes the facility will eventually house up to 48 children.
“They’re kids in our community that for whatever reason, whatever the circumstances are, they need some help. And that’s what we’re here for,” Gadberry said.
Some residents were hesitant about a new facility being housed in the former school building. Gadberry hopes citizens will realize the positive potential of Proverb Academy for Morehouse and for the Morehouse Elementary building.
“Instead of the building and the campus just basically dying, not ever serving another child, this is a way that it can,” Gadberry said. “It can still service the children in the community, around the community and be something that benefits the existing community here as a whole.”
Proverb Academy is in the process of renovating the school building so that it will be fit for residents. Gadberry said they are in the final stages of the project, and they hope to open and begin receiving children within the next couple of weeks.
Gadberry said that this facility is for children in need. He said the children living at Proverb Academy are not criminals or dangerous.
