Deep East Texas community raising 77 foster care kids gets movie made about them

POSSUM TROT, Texas (KLTV) - In the Pineywoods of Shelby County resides a community of families that embraced some of the most difficult-to-place kids in the foster care system. Over 20 years later, they’re getting a movie made.

First Lady of Bennett Chapel Baptist Church, Donna Martin, said it all started back in 1998 in the small town of Possum Trot.

“It was a hurting… and a calling,” Martin said.

A calling to adopt. With the support of her husband, Bishop W.C. Martin, they started the process, ultimately taking in four kids on top of their two biological ones.

“Because no child, no child, anywhere in this world deserves to not have a loving, caring home,” said Lady Martin.

But that mission to change the life of these kids grew into something much bigger than they ever expected.

Over the years, their example and building of community for adoptive families within their church led to 22 families adopting 77 kids.

“They saw what we as leaders, were not just preaching but setting an example,” Martin said.

Nearly all kids within their local foster care system ended up getting a home. Bishop Martin recalls hearing the moment a worker shared the impact they’d made.

“Susan said, ‘Well, Bishop Martin, I’m telling you that there’s not another child within 100-mile radius of Possum Trot.’”

CPS Regional Director Lori Sutton-White was involved in connecting a group of five sisters to one of the families. She says she’d never seen anything like Possums Trot’s movement.

“At that time, we just did not have the kind of movement where you saw an entire church or entire community come together,” Sutton-White said.

This community’s mission is to serve as an example of a possible solution to the current foster care crisis.

Bishop Martin said, “If every church would take two or three children. Every church. I don’t care if you got 20,000 members or you got two members, if every church would take two, we would empty this system... just like that.”

That’s something Sutton-White agrees with.

“We wouldn’t have a need for foster care. We would have more than enough for our children,” she said.

That message is now coming to the big screen. The Martins said Sound of Hope has been in the making for about 10 years and will depict their real-life experiences, and even reveal where some of the adopted kids are today.

As for the ones they took in, Lady Martin shared they’re doing great. She said some are currently practicing their careers while others have started families of their own.

“The greatest reward that we receive is to look at their lives where they are today,” she said.

Sound of Hope will come out in theaters July 4th.

For more information on East Texas kids available for adoption, please email hello@heartgalleryetx.org.

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