Dwyatt Gantt
Executive Director: Children’s Hope International

“God has wonderfully blessed us and allowed us to be in the very forefront of international adoption.  It is to us a position of trust and responsibility - a sacred trust to us which prescribes the way we must carry on this work; with integrity and service.”

 “Nothing I have ever done has been more fulfilling than to see a child that needs a home find a home that needs a child.  And we see it happen many hundreds of times each year.” 

Dwyatt Gantt is Executive Director and founder of Children’s Hope International in St. Louis, Missouri. Children’s Hope is a non-profit international adoption and humanitarian agency, with over 5000 adoptions from eight countries over the past 14 years.

Under Gantt’s leadership, Children’s Hope does not forget those children who are not adopted. Children's Hope's mission is to better the lives of orphans throughout the world so is expanding humanitarian projects through the Children's Hope Orphan Sponsorship program www.ChildrensHope.net . Children’s Hope provides food and medicine to orphanages in Guatemala and Afghanistan, builds playgrounds in Russia and sponsors career training in Vietnam and India. Also, since 2000 , Children's Hope has completed more than over 800 surgeries for orphans in China, some of those life saving heart surgeries.

Through the 1980s Gantt was training and recruiting Western English teachers to serve with him in China. As Executive Director of University Language Services in Beijing from 1982 to 1992, Gantt arranged contracts for over 700 teachers to teach long-term in Chinese Universities. During that time he assisted a few of his teachers to adopt Chinese orphans.

When China officially opened up to international adoption in 1992, Gantt volunteered to help. With a commitment to find the orphans of Chang Shu Social Welfare Home, loving homes in the United States, Children’s Hope International began. Gantt moved back to the United States and soon established an office in St. Louis, Missouri. In that first year, 14 children were adopted into forever homes.

In 1993, 20 adoptions were completed: up to 66 in 1994 and then almost four times that in 1995. By 2004, serving seven additional countries, Children’s Hope International found 816 orphans forever homes in one year.

Children’s Hope International has 15 branches across the United States with offices in Moscow, Beijing and Ho Chi Minh City.

Gantt completed his BA in Biblical Studies from eastern New Mexico University in 1953 and a Masters in Education from St. Mary’s College of California in 1981. 

Melody Zhang is Associate Director of Children’s Hope International in St. Louis. Children’s Hope is a non-profit international adoption and humanitarian agency, with over 5000 adoptions from eight countries since 1992.

Born and raised in China, Zhang became a writer for a national Chinese magazine.  As part of an assignment in 1989, she interviewed future Children’s Hope founder, Dwyatt Gantt, for an article on American English teachers in China. At the time Gantt was director of University Language Services in China.  Within three years the two would be working together to find Chinese orphans homes in the United States.

By 1992, when China opened up to international adoption, Zhang had established a solid partnership with an orphanage in her hometown of Chang Shu in Jiang Su province. With a commitment to find orphans homes in the United States from the Chang Shu Social Welfare Home, Children’s Hope International began.

Zhang worked out of China while Gantt, was establishing a home office back in the United States. In that first year, 14 children were adopted into forever homes.

In 1993, Zhang moved to St. Louis where Gantt had set up the permanent headquarters for Children’s Hope International. In that year 20 adoptions were completed: up to 66 in 1994 and then almost four times that in 1995. Working in five countries, Children’s Hope International found 816 orphans forever homes in 2004 and 744 in 2005. Zhang completed her Masters in Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis in 1997. 

Zhang and her husband Kevin, along with their two daughters, moved back to China in 2004. She is directing CHI's expanding adoption and medical projects in China from CHI's Beijing office

Born and raised in Kansas, Barron was a television-journalist for over 20 years.  From 1995 until 2003 he was the morning and noon weather anchor for KMOV-TV in St. Louis, Missouri. Prior to his position in St. Louis, from 1991 to 1995, he was the noon and five p.m. weather anchor for KWCH-TV in Wichita, Kansas. And from 1984 to 1991, Barron was a feature reporter and the 5/6 & 10 weekday weather anchor at KFSM-TV in Fort Smith, Arkansas.   

Barron is an adoptive parent of twin girls from China. He and his wife Marlene adopted through Children’s Hope International in 1999.  

http://www.childrenshope.com/Barrons.htm  Read all about the Barron’s miracle adoption.