With a swing of a hammer, the first Buckner Family Hope Center is coming to West Texas.

Buckner leaders, community officials and supporters today swung the first hammers that kicked off the remodel to the Buckner Family Pathways campus that will add a Family Hope Center to the community.

“It’s Demo Day in Lubbock,” said Buckner President/CEO Albert Reyes. “We’re demolishing poverty. We’re knocking down barriers to self-sufficiency. We’re building a way for hope to shine throughout Lubbock through strong families.”

The program will be the organization’s 27th Family Hope Center, strengthening vulnerable families in Texas and six other countries. These centers are community-based places of hope where families go to find strength and empowerment to reach their God given potential.

Family Hope Center services typically range from a variety of community events that engage families, to parent education classes, job skills training, financial empowerment, family coaching, counseling and spiritual enrichment.

“This is an exciting day,” said Kathy McGee, senior executive director at Buckner Children and Family Services in Lubbock. “It’s an exciting day for Buckner. It’s an even more exciting day for Lubbock families who are looking for help and hope. We look forward to offering practical assistance and encouragement to those who desperately need it."

The creation of the Family Hope Center is made possible by a gift from the estate of Maxine Steige, who lived in Lubbock from 1968-2014. She and her husband, Herbert, led a successful dental practice for 35 years and were generous to numerous organizations. At the age of 72, Steige published the children's book "Journey to the Back-40" in 2006.

Buckner Lubbock has been serving children and families in Lubbock since 1958 and currently serves vulnerable children and families through foster care and adoption, a Buckner Family Pathways program that provides single- parent families safe housing as well as a variety of other resources so they can reach their higher education goals and the Buckner FYi Center that ministers to children who have aged out of foster care.