Jen Lilley is a talented musician and accomplished Hallmark Channel actress, but above it all, she is a woman with a very big heart and a passion for the well-being of our country’s young people.
Foster care and adoption has always been on Jen’s heart, dating back to her childhood in Roanoke, Virginia. In her hometown, Jen’s parents were unofficial foster parents thanks to their line of work. With her father as a judge and her mother as the head of a women’s and children’s charity, Jen’s home became a kind of safe house for many individuals.
Jen is passionate about advocating for children’s rights – particularly in protecting children from physical and sexual abuse – supporting groups Childhelp, ECPAT, the Dave Thomas Foundation, and Project Orphans.
Alongside the pending release of her debut album, Jen has partnered with Project Orphans, based in the United States, to create #VoicesThatGive, a competition that awards people’s unique talents with chances to win a $10 000 cash prize, a walk-on role in her next Hallmark Channel movie, and a radio interview broadcast to over 40 countries. 100% of the profits from #VoicesThatGive will go toward supporting Project Orphans’ initiative to build a neighborhood specifically designed to support foster children and foster parents, with a focus on permanent, loving placements and adoption.
I love your heart for philanthropy and people, especially with Project Orphans and your newly launched contest, #VoicesThat Give. What ultimately encouraged you to come up with this besides your love of foster care and adoption?
Jen Lilley: I think the root of it is a very popular Bible verse – James 1:27 – that says, “pure religion before the Lord is this: Caring for the widows and orphans in their distress and remaining unstained from the world.” I think it is very upsetting that there’s so little help for those who are in distress and those who can’t help themselves. That is ultimately where the idea for the Village came from.
Over the years I’ve been talking to the co-founder of Project Orphans, Brittany Stokes, who is an amazing foster and adoptive mom in Oklahoma. She’s incredible. I did an interview with her on my podcast, Fostering Hope. Everyone should listen to it because Brittany will just light your fire.
She and I had been going back and forth talking about what would really help the foster care system. Orphanages do not work. Group homes do not work. While Brittany and I would take 100 children if we were allowed, that also would not work because children need your individual attention. They need to feel loved. They need to feel cherished. They need to feel special. At some point, you can’t divide your time as a parent. We had to kind of reanalyze what would work and does work. What we found works is families. Families work.
We came up with the idea to really have more of a neighborhood model. In Virginia, I grew up in a neighborhood. Some people call it a subdivision. There are houses to the right and the left. You know your neighbors. When they move in you bring them cookies, or there’s a welcome thing. I don’t know if that’s just southern appeal or what, but that’s what I grew up with and so that’s what I want.
My heart is that every single kid, though, has a little bit of yard in front of their house. I find that to be very important.
The idea is to have houses in a neighborhood model where each home has parents that are like my husband and I, or like Brittany and her husband. You don’t have to be married in order to be a parent. I’m just saying the houses would be parented by people who are like-minded, that are in it for the right reasons, who have a heart that is committed to family restoration when possible. That’s the goal of foster care. The primary goal is always to reunify the family, when it’s possible, and when it’s healthy and when it’s in the best interests of the child. When it’s not in the best interests of the child, I am hoping that all the parents in our neighborhood would be willing to adopt the children in their care if the case came to that. That’s the goal.
Enter the #VoicesThatGive contest HERE
I’m assuming that ultimately your goal is to change the narrative on the negativity of foster care and promote the good that can come out of it. Is that your goal?
Jen: That’s definitely one of the goals because here’s the thing. Ultimately with the neighborhood model, what you have is parents who have support to their right and their left. You have licensed babysitters, by default. They’re first aid certified. They’re familiar with what it’s like to be a foster parent and what they need to say. There’s this really fine line where you’re caring for somebody’s child and you love them as if they’re your own, but you have to do what’s called monitored visits with the birth family. During those, you’re not allowed to step in and parent that child while you’re watching poor parenting unless the child’s life is in imminent danger. So you’re trying to love that child as if they’re your own but also respect the birth family.
It’s not black and white. It’s very muddled and very emotional, and it’s not something that a normal parent can relate to. In the Village, you have built-in therapy for the parents to the right and the left. You have respite so that you can go on date night, which couples need and we don’t get. Also the kids in the neighborhood … the last thing a child in foster care needs is to feel like an outsider because they already feel like an outsider. In general, I was playing with my neighbors when I was a kid. You play with your neighbor’s kids after you finish your homework.
While one of our goals is to make sure that the children don’t feel stigmatized or labeled as a “foster kid,” so the great thing about the Village is that when they’re playing with their neighborhood friends, they don’t have to explain why they have their walls up. They don’t have to explain where they came from. They know that the kids on their right and on their left and across the street have gone through the same thing and they can hopefully let their guard down and be kids. They don’t have to feel isolated.
You asked if I’m trying to change the narrative. Here’s the thing. I’m incredibly passionate. My husband, like 51% of surveyed Americans, had the perception that children in foster care are associated with the juvenile delinquent system. That is not true. Obviously, he knows that now, but that’s the misconception and that’s why we want to flip the dialogue.
The truth is these are children or infants or amazing young women and men who have, through no fault of their own, found themselves in a broken system because they’ve sustained severe abuse and neglect. That’s not okay. What the statistics are that are bleak is that over 70% of our human trafficking victims here in the United States came from foster care. Up to 70% of our incarcerated came from foster care. Up to 50% of our homeless population came from foster care.
We can break the cycle of abuse. If we can stop the cycle of abuse, especially in our children, and let them know that they have worth, that they have belonging, that they are loved, that they are cared for, that they are not a mistake, they were created on purpose and for a purpose, you can actually break the cycle of abuse and then you’re going to see the numbers go down in human trafficking.
You’re going to see the numbers in incarceration and in homelessness go down. Human trafficking happens because both girls and boys – but generally girls – are running away because they’ve been in horrible foster homes and they know there is an element of empowerment that goes along with prostitution.
They think, “My body. I feel empowered.” This is the first time they’ve got the promise of money and income and using their body for whatever, and they get in this bondage situation that they can’t get out of that they did not foresee and they’re doing it because they’re seeking love. When you can give them love in an appropriate and healthy way early on, you’re avoiding that. Same thing with incarceration. A lot of times when you do have people from foster care that are becoming incarcerated it’s not because they’re horrible people. It’s because they’re scared and they think, “Let me do the math. I’m going to get a hot meal and a cot and I’m going to get a roof over my head. Nobody helped me with my school, so I’m not going to get a job. Maybe I’m just going to commit some sort of innocent crime with no intention of ever hurting someone just so I can get in a system that I understand how it works.” That’s the truth of it. If you can flip the narrative, break the cycle of abuse, you’re going to have a ripple effect on all sorts of systems.
You’re creating financial relief from the government, too. Nobody wants to pay taxes. You don’t want something that hurts your wallet. I can appeal to your wallet. You help foster kids, your taxes go down.
If you have one person out of every three churches in the United States would rise up and become a foster parent, you could have no more children in the system waiting for a loving home and then you would have hundreds and thousands of homes who were prepared, licensed, and willing to take that next emergency call. One person out of every three churches. I think statistically when you factor in the small churches back in the fields of Virginia and the megachurches, you can basically say that’s like one out of every 750. That is doable. That is an encouraging statistic. You know?
I love that, in relation to what you’re doing with your contest, I saw your story on Instagram where you were frustrated and you mentioned, “I need some encouragement.” When you get frustrated and discouraged with the contest #VoicesThatGive, how does your faith help you keep focused and maintain that focus on your project and your contest, and what you’re doing for people and with them?
Jen: It’s everything. It’s the same way I get through the foster care cases.
I have to just keep reminding myself that I care because God cares and he cares for and loves these children more than I do.
When you release an album, there’s this thing where each track of your album gets a digital UPC-type code with an encoding thing that protects your copyright. It’s called an ISRC. When I was registering mine, I specifically made my ISRC have the number 127 in it. Psalm 127 starts with, “Unless the Lord builds it, the builders build in vain.” Then it goes down to Psalm 127:4 says, “Children are a gift from the Lord. They’re arrows in your quiver.”
It’s just like if He doesn’t build it then it’s all for nothing. I can’t help these children alone. Apart from Jesus, I’m not helping them. I’m not. It’s like, “Okay, God. You can do this. I do believe that you deeply care about these children.” I just have to remind myself that I’m a co-laborer. I need to know where my heart is, in God, so that when my head hits that pillow I know that He’s working while I sleep.
That’s the thing with the #VoicesThatGive contest and my album too. People are like, “Why are you releasing your album by launching other people’s careers?” It’s like, “Cause it’s not about me!” My album is like a little bonus that’s hidden in there. You know? People will get my album.
How does the voting work in the next round of your contest, with respect to raising money?
Jen: May is the call to sign up, right? We’re just going to try to get as many artists as we possibly can to sign up. We really are pro artist, because like I’ve said before, I’m from Virginia. I did not know a soul when I moved here. I had no contacts.
I survived on determination and hard work and kindness because kindness will get you ahead and gratitude will get you ahead.
Starting in June all of the contestants will then ask their mom, their dad, their sister, their brother, their friends, whoever, their church, their community to vote for them. Every single voter registers their email address to cast their votes. They get one free vote. The rest are a dollar a piece. For example, you donate $10 and your contestant gets ten votes. You also get a copy of my album. You’re helping your friend or family member and getting a thank-you gift from me. Then the profit, 100% of my profit, is going to these kids. It’s like the contestant wins, the voter wins, the children win. It’s so smart.
There are different elements too. $10 is my album. $25 is my autographed album. $100 or more is my autographed album and a shirt. It has some incentive for the people that are donating to feel like they’ve been thanked and appreciated, but it’s really helping the kids. It’s going to be awesome.
That leads me to my next question. You worked with Diane Warren, and you’ve worked with an amazing string arrangement. What’s the collaboration like for you, and how did you get connected with these teammates on your upcoming debut album?
Jen: That was the Lord. That’s the only way I can answer that. This is going to take maybe five minutes for me to explain but I’m going to tell you this story. Basically, Eric Martsolf, my TV husband on Days of Our Lives– who is such an amazing, incredible, kind, wonderful human being – and I thought it would be fun for the fans because he used to sing on Broadway, to do that song. This is a duet. Literally just this would be a fun little thing for our fans to love. Right?
That song hooked me up with Rob Christy, who is a multi-Grammy-winning producer; the kindest, most genuine, most honest person you’ve ever met. The music industry and the word honest do not go together. That song did so well that I got to do a Christmas album. Rob, on that album, got Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra’s musicians on it. Greg Field is the drummer. Tom Renier is my pianist, who worked with Barbara Streisand. Chuck Berghofer was on bass. It ended up going to number one on Amazon. It outsold Dean Martin, Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and Harry Connick Jr. When I found out I was like, “What are you talking about?”
Then people started asking me, “When are you going to do a real album?” I was like, “Probably never.” I didn’t have time, first. Then, I was at Childhelp’s Drive The Dream Gala, which is one of the longest and largest running non-profit for anti-child abuse. They’re incredible. Out of all the amazing charities in the whole wide world, and I would be building this village with them.
Also, if it wasn’t for the fact that they already have villages, and their villages focus on the children who need intensive rehab and therapy, with mine focusing on being the first stop for children in foster care, instead of the last stop and chance, like Childhelp provides, which is SO necessary. They’re amazing!
Afterward, all of the people attend this gala event. We all go back to our hotel rooms because it’s an event in Arizona and so everybody is there flying in. Basically afterwards we were around the fire pit at the Waldorf Astoria making s’mores and drinking wine.
We met the former mayor of Malibu, Pam Ulrich. I think that’s her last name. Pam is the funniest woman you’ve ever met. She’s such a character. She insisted that I get to know her friend Adrian Gurvitz, who’s a music producer.
I put off meeting with Adrian for quite a while, but eventually, I arranged a meeting. I go over there, have zero intention of making an album, and then we start talking and he’s like, “Hey, do you want to make an album together?” I heard in my head the Holy Spirit said, yes. I was like, No, I don’t want to say yes. I said, “Yes.” He was like, “Great.” He starts talking about it. He’s like, “Don’t give me some ludicrous number. Don’t tell me you want to do it for cheap. It’s going to be at least this amount of money.” It was an outlandish amount of money that I didn’t have. The Holy Spirit again was saying, “Just say yes.” I just said, “Okay, let me talk to my husband about it.” I said, “Yes.” I walked away and I was like what did I just do?
Literally, girl, checks started coming in the mail. People called me being like, “We found this check. We don’t know where it came from, but you have all these residuals we found.”
Then Hallmark called me. I had not done a Hallmark movie yet at that point. They quoted me some ludicrous number for a movie with them. Done. Every time a payment was due, I got a check. If I can take my seed money and build a multi-million dollar neighborhood out of it, that is God. My husband and I determined it in our hearts that we’re just going to go with God and trust.
It’s pretty amazing because of how Big Time Radio got involved. They’re a huge part of the competition. They get thousands and thousands and thousands of submissions from people that want their music to be played. Charlie [Cawood, founder of Big Time Radio] literally was going through and again, and for whatever reason, he said: “click that one.” It was my song. He was like, “Who is this girl?” and he’s how I’m doing this competition. He is giving the reward for airplay in 44 countries. It was amazing.
You also have a competition with your single “On The Street Where You Live,” giving your fans a chance to be included in the music video. Would you like to talk more about that?
Jen: Sure. Anyone who collects 100 votes from their friends and family will qualify to be featured in my music video for On the Street Where You Live. As long as they’re okay with that. Blink-182 made this really cool music video of them in quarantine and a bunch of people in quarantine – like a Zoom-style music video. We’re gearing up to do a similar type thing. I think it’s so appropriate because one of the lyrics is “I’ll meet you on the street where you live and I’ll hold you in my arms again.” It’s so appropriate for social distancing!
Watch Jen’s music video for her single “King of Hearts”:
