Riddick Providing Options for Hope

Published 11:42 am Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Glenda Riddick serves as the administrator for the local organization Options for Hope, based in Margaret. Through Options for Hope, she has recently released the “Alabama Guide to Family and Community Services 2009,” which is now available at the Leeds, Moody and Odenville Library, and it will be available at Barnes and Noble bookstores by the end of the month. This guide is a social services directory containing 9,200 resources for across all 67 Alabama counties, but it is not her first experience compiling such a book. Riddick actually published 55 resource directories in southern California before she moved to Alabama a few years ago.

Riddick said decided to start up Options for Hope a few years ago after an elder at church asked her if she would create a directory with services for local churches. “The function (of Options for Hope) is to help people find resources and if I am unable to help them, I can help them find people who can help them,” she said. “For example, if someone is having economic problems and needs housing, they can go to that topic and it will direct them to housing authorities and assisted living programs.”

“I used my own personal funds to produce the directory, every person who goes into business or mission work must take a risk and have a strong faith in God,” said Riddick, who is a retired teacher.

The “Alabama Guide to Family and Community Services 2009” is a 640 page manual with 50 chapters. Riddick said that the directory contains primarily government and nonprofit agencies in the chapaters such as housing, emergency assistance, legal assistance and parenting, in addition to a complete list of government and private, as well as profit and non-profit hospitals, rehab centers, home health programs, nursing homes, assisted living and hospice care.

The directory breaks the resources down by topics and by regions to help locate services that are close by. She said that while the organization’s focus is finding resource that are free and low cost, the guide includes services of all price ranges.

Riddick grew up on a farm in Tennessee, and she said that although her family did not have much financially, she always remembers her parents being good examples to her and her four siblings by being giving to others. “They always taught us to be caring of others, to be generous and to trust in God,” she said.

Riddick received her bachelor’s degree in home economics from George Peabody in Nashville and her master’s degree in human psychology and counseling from Abilene Christian University in Texas. Throughout the years, she has had much hands-on experience helping others. For instance, she has taken part in projects such as spening two years helping to set up a girl’s school in Africa and working at a housing project and with foster parents in California. She also worked with McGraw-Hill on creating the first developmental television courses in the 1970s. In addition, Riddick spent some time teaching in China, working with a nursing home project in Colombia, as well as working for a training program which taught people of third-world countries how to put their available resources to use. Recently, she volunteered 5 weeks to help coordinate and cook for people working on the Katrina Recovery on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. “God always layed out a plan that led me to helping people find resources,” she said.

In 2003, she moved to Margaret to be close to her son and daughter-in-law, and she also opened Curves franchises in Pelham and Homewood, which she said she said she liked because of their Christian-base.

Riddick added that one reason that she strives to help people help themselves is because she knows that there is truly a need for it. She said that she plans to continue to use Options for Hope to show people how to use their resources and apply them. “I want to continue finding ways to help people,” she said.

Riddick will be presenting her book on February 28 at the Barnes and Noble at the Summit at the Southern Writers Book fest, where the Alabama Guide to Family and Community Services 2009 will be one of 10 publications featured.

For more information about Options for Hope, visit :

www.optionsforhope.net