Kelly & Richard Archibald, Qavah The Storehouse | The Jeff Crilley Show

Jeff Crilley sits down with Kelly and Richard Archibald, the husband-and-wife co-founders of Qavah The Storehouse, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to serving children in the Texas foster care system. The conversation centers on their signature "first night bags"—brand-new backpacks filled with pajamas, toiletries, clothes, and a personal note—delivered to CPS offices so that a child removed from their home has something of their own from the very first night....

Show Notes

Roughly 28,000 children are in the Texas foster care system right now. When a child is removed from their home—often in an emergency—they may arrive at a shelter or foster placement with nothing but the clothes on their back, or sometimes less.

Kelly and Richard Archibald founded Qavah The Storehouse to change that moment. Their nonprofit assembles "first night bags": brand-new backpacks stocked with pajamas, an outfit for the next day, toiletries, and a handwritten note of encouragement. They deliver them to CPS offices and the Children's Advocacy Center so caseworkers can hand a bag to a child on the worst night of their life.

Richard speaks from firsthand experience. As a boy, he and his brothers were taken to a shelter after his mother's arrest—given only a thin gown, nothing else. That memory fuels everything the organization does. Kelly, a small business owner who also serves on the Child Welfare Board, walks through exactly what goes into each bag and explains the standard they hold themselves to: "if our children were going to spend the night with somebody."

The episode also covers Qavah's reunification parties for families coming back together, their donations of Halloween costumes to homeless student-parents at DISD, and the couple's popular podcast featuring foster care alumni and survivors telling their own stories. Their next goal is a brick-and-mortar location where kids can walk in and pick out clothes and supplies for themselves.

https://www.qavahpodcast.com/qavahstorehouse

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Coming up next on the Jeff Crilley Show, you're gonna meet an amazing husband and wife team that lead this soulful nonprofit. They they're dedicated to helping children in the foster care system or at risk of going into the foster care system. Their incredible journey just ahead. Many are predicting that the worst is yet to come, which is unfortunate, said one person here. Until now, they've enjoyed the reputation of being the nation's icebox. Watched a burglar in his home this morning by webcam. As a journalist of over twenty five years, stories are what make my world turn. Reporting live from The Dallas Newsroom tonight, Jeff Crilley, Fox four news. But in 2008, I took the jump from my familiar life and started a PR firm from my home. We're talking about anyone with a camcorder like the one I'm using becomes a television network. We started slowly growing the company and we now have over a 100 clients and we've branched into the world of live digital broadcasting. I now own eight different TV studios and have a huge team. And the stories that I now get to share are sometimes the most important of my life. Life has a funny way of coming around full circle. This is The Jeff Crilley Show. Well the statistics are a little rough, but roughly twenty eight thousand children are in the Texas foster care system and countless others are at risk of going into the foster care system. I met this amazing husband and wife team and I invited them on my show. Kelly and Richard Archibald are in the studios. They are the co founders of Cavah The Storehouse. Awesome. Thanks for coming on the show. You, Jeff. We appreciate you. Well, I'm I'm honored to have you on the show. So why don't we start at the very beginning? How did this journey begin? Do you want to start? Well, we started about eight years ago collecting for first night bags and first night bags are everything a child would need the first night they've been removed from the home. And so we just saw a need for that. And so we started that about eight years ago and it just kind of grew. From that, we have collected for multiple counties for the whole entire year for, you know, for them to give first night bags to to children who've been removed. So we grew and I had the opportunity to go to some other nonprofits to see what they were doing and I was like, oh my goodness, I wanna do these things. So they have they have facilities where they allow people to come and do visits and so I was like, okay, we want to grow and do some more things. And so, we just became a five zero one c three and started doing some other things. Richard, why is this so important to that child at that moment in time? Well, the main reason is because when a child's removed, they really don't have anything. They're oftentimes, at least my experience with that was, you don't have any of your own stuff and you're really just there and you don't have anything to wear to bed. You don't have anything to brush your Just teeth things like that. And so that's really why it's so important is so that they have something to call their own. Sure. They have something to take care of themselves with. And that's really the importance of it. Why don't we do a little show and tell? We're gonna begin with you, Kelly. Why don't you pull up that backpack? And this is a pretty standard Yes. Oh, my hanger's stuck. Okay. It's okay. It's kind of a standard gift. This is Yes. So a little girl. This is for a little girl. And so when she is removed, we would provide a bag like this. And this one has little a pajama set with slippers, which like, what little girl wouldn't want something like that. And then we have an outfit for the next day for her. So, you know, whatever she's gonna be doing, if she goes to school or whatever. And these are all new? These are brand new. We provide brand new. And we we decided that we would do this, like, if our children were going to spend the night with somebody. Sure. So they're getting exactly what I would give my children. And so there's a little puzzle in here for her. We have underwear, and we have a toothpaste and toothbrush and soap. And so she has all of these things, and these are her things that she gets because oftentimes, you know, they may have their things in a trash bag or they may, like he said, they may not have anything at all. So we want these children to know that there's someone who is who cares for them and that they are important too. Okay. While you're packing that up, okay, Richard, why don't you grab your duffel bag? Sure. So this is for an older boy, and it has similar items, but just geared toward an older boy. Includes a sketch pad. Mhmm. Utilize something that they can play with other boys. Sure. Might be wherever they are with them. Shorts, sweatshirt, pajamas, toothbrush, deodorant, things you And wanna often, I I I imagine that you're there when they receive it. I mean We are not there when they receive it because what Yeah. You know, when they go into care, it's a lot of times, it's an emergency situation. And so we provide these for CPS offices. Okay. And so we they there are some schools that have helped us collect. And so what we do is we collect all the first night bags and then we'll deliver them to different CPS offices. Wow. And so when there's a four year old little girl, they'll go, oh, I have a first night bag for her. And so that can go to her. And so we also work with the CAC, which is the Children's Advocacy Center. And so, like if there's a crime and no one's allowed back in the house, then those children will need provisions too. We've just provided for five children for five days because of something that happened in their home. Wow. Okay. We're gonna pull up the website as we scroll down the website. I know that you're not there for the actual gift, but I'm sure you hear stories from different people on the front line. What kind of feedback are you getting and and makes you more emboldened to keep doing this? Well, gratitude. Like the CPS workers that we deal with, they're very grateful to be able to provide for the children and in this way. And, you know, just a lot of gratitude. And we have written personal notes in some of the backpacks or things, and those have made very big impacts. And we've gotten some letters back from some, you know, older children that have been very grateful for that encouragement to say, you know, you're cared for. Richard, is there a personal story? I mean, why why this? I mean, you guys could serve different parts of mankind. Why this? Well, you know, when when we started the first night back, it sort of stemmed from I had some a a few events. One of specific relevance, my mom was arrested. We happened to be with her, me and my two brothers. And, of course, there was no one that they knew to take us to, so we had to go to the shelter. And it was one of the it's been a while, but it was one of the shelters where it was almost like you just got a little yow and you threw over you. Right. And that's all you had. And if you didn't have anything else, you didn't have anything else and they didn't provide it. And so the first night bag idea to me was this is a great thing. I I think that it would have been so important comforting if I had had such a thing. And that's what led to doing the first night bags and then that led to others contributing. Yeah. And it just sort of, I guess, snowballed from there. That's beautiful. I I'm I'm I'm watching your eyes and your eyes changed when you told that story. What's going on in your heart right now? Why does that still make you misty? Well, I think just the event and then the appreciation, the idea that I could help someone that might be in this situation, have some confidence, stand up for who they are because they got their own stuff. They're not walking around in a hospital type gown at the back, may or may not be open. So, it's almost a protection Sure. Sense. And yeah, that is meaningful. Absolutely beautiful. We're gonna show some pictures off your Facebook. You don't have to narrate each picture, but as we put these up, maybe describe what we're looking at. So would be, you know, we have done things for back to school. So I that was a back to school fundraiser that we did. Yeah. That is our we did this the other day. We had a resource fair. And so those are these are, you know, the first night bags just showing what we do. And that is our other director, Cheyenne Weebel. She's our good friend. Okay. This was a reunification party, and that's the mom and her babies. And, okay, we had a ball. We had an absolute ball. To celebrate her, she did all the work and was able to be reunified with her children. And so and all she asked for were diapers. Okay. This is we were able to donate to the homeless students who are parents at DISD. So we were those are Halloween costumes for those students so that they you know, people still need to go trick or treating. You need to have a regular And so some NCL young ladies collected Halloween costumes, and so we donated them to DISD. And those are for our first night bags. Those are some items that were donated to us for our first night bags. Beautiful. Well, know you're a nonprofit We five zero one c three Yes. So you depend on donations. We do. Yes. We have about two minutes left, so I I want you both to give kind of final thoughts. Why don't we start with you, Kelly, and we'll end with Richard. Final thoughts, what do you wanna leave the viewer with? Well, we are so grateful for the opportunity to share about The Storehouse. We have dreams of serving people in bigger ways, and so if you feel led to donate to us, we would appreciate that. It all goes to the children. We don't make any money off of this at all. Every single dime goes to serve the children and we are so grateful, Jeff. Thank you so much. It's my honor. Richard? Yeah. Well, like Kelly said, we would like to have a location where we could have places where children could come and she calls it shopping. I I would call it picking things out because you're not paying for it. Yes. No. I was in Buckner Children's Home for a little bit and they had a similar type situation where you could go in and Yes. Pick out a two shirts, pick out a clip on tie, a suit jacket for And that was that has really stuck with me. And so being able to provide that would be a terrific thing that we would want to do. Alright. Before we go, I know you have a very popular podcast. Let's put that on the screen and you can talk about the kinds of guests that you have on your show Okay. And So Christine Nance, she's adopted three children through CPS and her father was in prison when she grew up and was since executed. And so she's a precious, has a beautiful story. Josh Brewer grew up in the foster care system. Amazing young man who has a beautiful family now. Casey Moore had addiction issues. And then the Archibald brothers, that's his story. Seven episodes of their wild and crazy story that ended in his father's murder. And that is, and then that's Franny Fox. And she was a pastor's wife and had a betrayal by her husband. And she has a beautiful story and a beautiful life. If you I think that's Okay. So, Sammy and Mary are both from Iran. Oh, wow. And they both have escaped from very dark situations and have amazing stories. Mary was actually displaced and she landed in Dallas and she's still here. She's a she's a beautiful lady. I love her. Wow. Well, I urge everybody to come alongside them. You're doing the Lord's work. We're gonna leave you with the website which is kavahthepodcast.com or kavahpodcast.com. Kelly and Richard, thanks for coming on the show. Thank you. Thank you, We appreciate it. That's it for now. We'll see you next time.