Get Lost!

Before, he never got the chance. "In Jose's case, he's been shuffled around the system so long, every time he got moved, he would get all stirred up and become volatile," explains Terry Rogers, Lost and Found's residential director. "And a lot of the moves were not his fault. One program closed on him, his mom abandoned him; half the things that happened to this kid are not of his doing. We've been helping him get some clarity on that. There are still pieces of his behavior that he needs to look at, but he's understanding that he is not to blame for everything. That's where a lot of his hope is coming from. He's seeing that he doesn't just have to be a victim of the system, that he can actually get out of it."

"We provide a therapeutic, healing community where kids can learn to interact with other kids appropriately, often for the first time in their lives," Rogers says. "By living in a healthy community where there are adult mentors and role models, they can learn in a different way. We have a highly trained staff, but it's not rocket science; it's just about learning healthy relationships."

Rogers says that Lost and Found's motto — "Hope, healing, a place to grow" — pretty well sums up what goes on there. But unlike the hundreds of kids who have passed through the program since it started 27 years ago, Lost and Found itself is having trouble finding a place to grow. Last year the nonprofit leased a 115-acre former Christian campground in Evergreen, where it wants to move both its Morrison boys' facility and a girls' facility that's now in Arvada. But some very vocal residents of Clear Creek County insist that the property is no place for the program — or the kids who've found a home at Lost and Found.

Harl Hargett, executive director of Lost and Found, views his work as God's calling. "Hargett, a former 'hippie' and drug addict, had emerged from the 70-80s culture via the power of the Holy Spirit at age 30," the program's website explains. "On fire and looking for a way to minister (by the hand of God), Harl met the Board President of Lost and Found, Inc., who convinced him to 'come up and see Bob's hope for teens.'" Bob was Bob Lynch, a former alcoholic turned Christian who'd been called to establish a place where drug-addicted teenagers could turn their lives around. Lynch's vision started with a few houses in Denver in the late 1970s, but soon expanded to the Morrison facility when it came on the market in 1979. The next year, Lynch was working on converting a geodesic dome on the property into a house for girls when he slipped and fell. He died from injuries sustained in the accident, and Hargett carried on Lynch's vision.

"I came on board at the time to try and see if the ministry could be salvaged after Bob's death," Hargett says. "I've been here ever since."

In the 27 years that Hargett has been with Lost and Found, the organization has expanded from a modest center for a handful of troubled teens to a full-fledged nonprofit with 160 employees and two facilities catering to the needs of more than thirty children. Lost and Found offers a family-counseling center, a child-placement agency, an independent-living program and a slew of other services.

"They're a great group," says Skip Barber, executive director of the Colorado Association of Family and Children's Agencies. "They're a quality treatment organization, and they have had great leadership over the past twenty-something years. I think they strive for the best interest of the kids and are constantly expanding the program to meet the needs of the population they've been working with."

But while those needs continue to grow, Lost and Found's budget has not.