Meet Our Founder
Listen to Sister Sophie tell Paul’s story, a Salesian Sister who has been at the center of the Homes of Hope story since its first day and introduced Paul to Reena in 2006.
Meet Our Founder, Paul Wilkes
In February 2006, Paul Wilkes met a 6-year-old girl, named Reena, on a trip-of-a-lifetime tour of India with his wife. From an air-conditioned car window, he witnessed grinding poverty in Kochi and so many children begging on the streets that he blurted out to his driver, “I’m Catholic. What is my church doing to help these poor people?”
Paul was driven to a nearby orphanage run by Catholic sisters where he met Reena and heard her story. Reena was abandoned on the streets, kidnapped, and blinded in her left eye by the “beggar mafia” to make her a better, more profitable child beggar. Despite the cruelty endured as an innocent child, when Reena met Paul, she looked up at him with the most beautiful, trusting smile he had ever seen.
Above: It all started with a little girl’s smile.
Below: Reena and Paul together.
Moved by the experience and haunted by the tragic life stories of 68 orphan girls he met that day, Paul returned home wondering, “What was I, one person, going to do? Where could I even begin to help?” But then thought, “If not me, who?”
Paul vowed that he would somehow, someway make Reena’s future better than her horrible past. Little did he know then that the rest of his life would be dedicated first to those orphan girls in Kochi, and eventually to thousands of marginalized girls living in extreme poverty across India.
Paul is founder of Home of Hope India-US, a 501(c)(3) registered charity. In collaboration with Catholic sisters in India, our mission is to rescue and empower marginalized girls in India with the housing, education, love, and support they need to break the cycle of poverty.
Paul’s faith, courage, passion, and tireless effort to advance our mission, and his ability to draw others into embracing our mission, is extraordinary. As a journalist, Paul has a gift with words, and he quickly discovered that when he told her story, Reena had the same impact on others as she had on him. Before he knew it, Paul created a movement of support that would sustain his work year after year. Today, Homes of Hope receives support from individuals, families, foundations, and parishes across the U.S. and in 14 countries.
In 2026, when he turned 88 years old, Paul was nominated for the CNN Hero of the Year Award. He is an inspiration and a living example of the difference one person can make in the world.
Our founder with girls in India in 2011.
Contact Us
Board of Directors and Staff
Patricia Bennett
Entrepreneur/Optimist/Driven to Excellence
Barbara J. Bush, Treasurer
Retired Accountant
John Clegg, Chairman
Entrepreneur
Robert C. Davis
CEO-Process Control Solutions
Jim Fienup
University Professor / Scientist
Glen Gaidos
Strategic Advisor
Rupa Grummon
Nurse Practitioner
Patrick W. Marriott, Secretary
Retired General Electric Executive
Janice O’Neill
Human Resources Executive
Joseph Tallarico
Retired Unilever Executive
Carol Skoglund
Executive Director
Paul Wilkes, Founder
Barbara Bush retired from WHQR Public Media in Wilmington, NC after serving 17 years as Finance Director. In her role, she worked with the WHQR Board, community partners, colleagues, and volunteers. Barbara volunteers on boards and committees in her community and joined Homes of Hope in 2025.
Bob Davis is the owner of Process Control Solutions, a small business selling and servicing industrial and life science equipment through the Northeast United States. He has been involved with Home of Hope since 2007 as a board member and mission appeal speaker. In 2008, Bob travelled to Kochi to visit and meet the young women and sisters of the orphanage there. He is married and has three children, all of which he hopes to bring to India to see our work.
Carol Skoglund lives in Cleveland and joined Homes of Hope in January 2025 after receiving a call from Janice on the board. The two first visited India together as college students. Early in 2025, Carol returned to India to tour ten Homes of Hope locations.
Jim Fienup is the Robert E. Hopkins Professor of Optics at the University of Rochester. He is one of the pioneers in unconventional optical imaging, which has uses in medicine, astronomy, and many other fields. While in India for an optics conference in 2011, he visited two Homes of Hope locations and has been involved in our work since then. He and his wife, Patty, have four grown sons and four grandchildren.
Glen Gaidos is an entrepreneur, investor, and writer. In 2003, he launched 3R Technology with the mission of improving technology lifecycle management and keeping electronics out of the landfill. Glen came to serve our board in 2017, after 3R Technology donated refurbished laptops to provide technology access for the orphanages. When not working on his various endeavors, he enjoys volunteering, hiking, paddle-boarding and playing music.
Rupa Grummon was born in New Delhi, India. She was adopted at birth by an Indian couple who had already emigrated to the United States, so she has a special place in her heart for orphan girls. Rupa earned two masters degrees in nursing and has worked as a critical care nurse and cardiology nurse practitioner. She and her husband Charles, children Sophie and Xander, live in Brentwood, TN. They found Homes of Hope through an Internet search and are generous supporters. They hope to visit India soon.
Brenda Marcoux is a 4th grade teacher in Shirley MA. She is married and the mother of two children and one exchange daughter from Seoul, South Korea. Brenda taught in our school in Warangal, India during the summer of 2010.
Pat Marriott retired from the General Electric Company in 1999, after a 33-year career in management and senior executive positions, to devote himself to voluntary public service. He is a program producer and host at WHQR, the NPR station in Wilmington NC; the music librarian for Mepkin Abbey, a Trappist monastery; and serves as an officer on several nonprofit boards of directors.
Janice O’Neill is a Human Resources Executive with a specialty in Talent Development. Her career has focused on building and enabling high performance organizations. Janice first visited India as a college student and knew she would be back. She visited our Kochi orphanage in 2014 with her daughter and made a visit to one of our Bangalores home in 2022 with business colleagues.
Joe Tallarico joined the Homes of Hope Board of Directors in 2015. After meeting Paul in West Virginia in 2014, Joe, his wife and his generous daughter immediately began contributing in various ways. In 36 years with Unilever, Joe has held leadership positions in sales, marketing, training, and information technology. He is a worldwide consultant to the food industry.
Glenn and his lovely wife Mary reside in Wilmington NC. They are active in their local church parish where Mary currently serves as the office manager. Glenn enjoys the recreational opportunities the Wilmington / Wrightsville Beach area affords and can be found surfing, practicing yoga with Mary, or riding his motorcycle when he’s not working at the General Electric Nuclear Energy site where he’s been for the past 16 years leading manufacturing and quality departments.
Paul Wilkes is a journalist, writer and social entrepreneur. He founded Homes of Hope in 2006 after a visit to our orphanage at Kochi and meeting Reena, who had been blinded to make her a better beggar. He has written for The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine and many other publications in addition to his work as a documentary film producer, director and writer. He is the author of over twenty books. His wife Tracy founded DREAMS of Wilmington, a character development program for at-risk youth that uses the arts to build self-esteem and discipline. They have two grown sons.
Lauren became involved with Homes of Hope after visiting and volunteering at the Homes of Hope in Kochi and in Secunderabad in early 2015. Lauren has returned to India on multiple occasions to visit and volunteer with Homes of Hope while finishing her master’s degree in social work. Lauren became the Program Coordinator for Homes of Hope – India in March of 2017 and plans to return to India again as soon as possible (she would move there if she could but she has two dogs who wouldn’t be allowed to make the journey).