Doug and Robbie Smith.

wenty-five years ago, Doug and Robbie Smith were ready to sail off to retired bliss on Florida’s waterways and beyond. However, an unexpected thing happened on the way to that idyllic passage.

Doug, who himself overcame a troubled youth, had a divine encounter that resulted in taking two teenaged at-risk boys under his wing for the summer. His wife, Robbie, was a bit reluctant to go along at first, but Doug’s unquenchable faith overrode her doubts. After all, it was just for one summer, right?

Those two boys, remarkably changed, eventually turned into 15 plus staff. “We’re on the ‘Moses retirement plan’ today,” Robbie says, 24 summers later, with a chuckle. “We don’t know of anywhere else we would rather be.”

While Doug and Robbie still love the water, they have no qualms about living next to it instead of on it. “I have this silly coffee cup that shows a little travel trailer sitting on the end of a dock, and it says ‘Location, location, location,’” says Robbie. Their home is a 36-foot travel trailer. “Waterfront property!” Robbie points out. The “dorms” at Safe Harbor Home for at-risk boys are sailboats in the marina, and each boy maintains his own space.

Aerial view of the Safe Harbor Boys Home marina and grounds.

The Smiths have a vision to expand the Safe Harbor Boys Home to as many as 30 boys who are in need of the godly guidance and life-skills training the Smiths provide in their trademark adventure-on-the-water fashion. When they eventually retire, they want to travel and train other seafaring folks to do what they have done.

“Our story really is a story of the boys, but also of what you can do if you say to God, ‘I’m just going to trust you,’” says Robbie. “There’s nothing special about us. We were just two people – probably the least equipped to do anything like this – who trusted God.”

Seeking God’s purpose

When he was young, Doug had trouble reading because of dyslexia. With no real father connection – he and his stepfather did not get along – he felt adrift. “But Doug had incredible faith from the time he was a young boy of 8 or 9,” Robbie says. “His favorite Scripture verse is James 1:5: ‘If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God … and it will be given to him.’” Doug sought that wisdom.

“The most horrible thing in the whole world for a kid is the sense that he is alone and nobody cares,” says Robbie. “What helped Doug was understanding that he wasn’t alone, that people did care. He wanted to model for these boys what other caring adults had done for him. People give up on these kids. A counselor may see them in an office for an hour of counseling, but they don’t know what happens the other 23 hours. We do.”

Movie poster for  TV's Hallmark Channel film about Safe Harbor.

So remarkable has been the success of the Safe Harbor program that TV’s Hallmark Channel made a movie about its beginnings to coincide with Safe Harbor’s 25th anniversary. It aired over the Memorial Day weekend just past. While the storyline takes a few Hollywood liberties, it remains true to the spirit of Safe Harbor and the Smiths’ love for “their” boys.

“We really appreciate that the Hallmark Channel wanted to do this movie right. They were concerned about us. I feel good about it,” says Robbie. In fact, she hopes it will draw more attention to Safe Harbor and allow them to become a model for other programs around the country.

“There are still people who don’t get what we do. They don’t understand residential education,” says Robbie. “We belong to a national group called Coalition for Residential Education (CORE). We do more than just educate kids. We get involved in their lives long term. Our boys thrive because they have the relationships. They have a mom and dad kind of role model.”

With Doug and Robbie, the boys get a “mom” who is a licensed mental health counselor and a “dad” who has a doctorate in ministry.

Robbie is “really big” on cognitive therapy, which she likes to point out has been around as long as the Old Testament. “The boys know my two favorite Scripture verses are, ‘The tongue has the power of life and death …’ (Proverbs 18:21) and ‘As (a man) thinks within himself, so he is’ (Proverbs 23:7)."

Doug, says Robbie, is known as the “express” counselor. “He always asks, ‘Is that working for you?’ If the answer is no, you’ll hear, ‘Well, do something different. Next!’ He’s probably 10 times the therapist I am. He hones right in on what the core issue is. I love to watch him work.”

Modeling Christ is front and center at Safe Harbor, and that sets it apart from other similar programs. “If you don’t take (state) money, you are free to have a religious or spiritual program, but you still have to follow the other guidelines for health, welfare and safety,” says Robbie. “We say, in our program, Jesus meets you at the front door. We don’t hide it. Christianity is a lifestyle, a relationship. It’s infused in everything we do.”

To Doug and Robbie, “faith-based” programs with government entitlement are an oxymoron. “If your faith is in where the paycheck is going to come from, then your faith is going to be in the government,” says Robbie. “If your faith is in God, it’s in God. God owns as much money as you need to operate. You just have to operate according to his will and follow his plan, and he will open the doors for that money to come.”

It hasn’t all been a bed of roses for the Smiths. Back in 1986, their business that helped fund Safe Harbor then was not bringing in the income they needed. “We decided Doug would go back to work at night at the shipyard as a machinist and I would work during the day, and we would swap off,” recalls Robbie. “We were committed.”

After about four years, the Smiths had the finances for Robbie to come back to the boys home on a full-time basis. Robbie was still uneasy about making ends meet, but Doug told her, “You watch and see what happens.” Within three weeks, “we had people coming out of the woodwork to give us food,” Robbie says. That’s a lesson neither of them forgets.

“A tired boy is a good boy”

Doug and Robbie Smith with several Safe Harbor high school graduates.

Safe Harbor boys follow a daily routine that instills discipline and personal responsibility. They “report for duty” at 7 a.m. each day, unless they are on breakfast duty, which requires reporting a half-hour earlier. Breakfast is at 7:30, and includes the staff. By 8 a.m., they clear the table for morning devotions.

From about 8:45 or 9 a.m. until lunchtime, the boys focus on either academics – a high school diploma program with an on-site teacher – or vocational education. Weekly block scheduling allows them to alternate between academics and vocational training, some of which they do off site in cooperation with local businesses.

The boys stay a minimum of a year. “Most of our boys stay with us until they transition to their next stage of life, whether it’s a vocation, college or the military,” Robbie says. “We’re not just rehabilitating these boys. We’re regenerating them from the spiritual aspect of rebirth.”

Doug and Robbie still hear from many of the Safe Harbor alumni. There are hundreds of them, most married and living fruitful lives. “Our core philosophy is once a Safe Harbor boy, always a Safe Harbor boy, no matter how old you are,” says Robbie.

Safe Harbor residents hone their sailing skills.

So meaningful is one sailing ritual at Safe Harbor that many former residents re-experience it with their own children years later.

“We make a sailing trip to Cumberland Island once or twice a year,” says Robbie. “We have a book buried there at certain GPS coordinates. The boys go and find it, dig it up and write in it. It’s a rite of passage. It has some Scripture in it and says, ‘Today I became a man.’ They each sign it.”

The “call of the sea” may not lure every Safe Harbor boy back to the water when his time with the Smiths is over, but each knows the significance the water plays in his passage to manhood and in healing old hurts.

“The water can bring drama, but it can also be exceedingly calming,” says Robbie. “If you take a sailboat out and you cut the motor and put the sails up, I don’t care how angry you are, you’re not going to stay that way. You’re going to see God’s majesty and beauty. When you feel a puff of wind and it makes that sailboat move forward, it feels awesome. It’s a metaphor for trusting God.”

Safe Harbor boys say thanks to Doug and Robbie Smith and their staff.

Thanks to Doug and Robbie Smith’s vision, a second generation – children of former Safe Harbor boys that they may never see – is learning to trust God.