Options For Hope was founded for the express purpose of helping people in Alabama identify and gain access to resources and services available to them. Our director Glenda Riddick has a 25 year history of publishing social service directories for Los Angeles and nearby counties in Southern California. Glenda also served as an Associate Professor of Human Development for 25 years at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California. She published 55 social service directories for Southern California regions between 1979 and 2003. The  annual edition of the Los Angeles County directory contained more than 10,000 resources for just that one county.

Glenda moved to Alabama in the fall of 2004. Alabama friends saw some of her California directories and encouraged her to develop a similar directory for Alabama. In 2007, she began intensive research, hired assistants to call agencies and started the process of compiling resources for Alabama. The first edition of this directory was released in March, 2008 with 7,146 Alabama resources. The 2009 directory, our 2nd edition had 9,200 Alabama resources. The 2011 edition contains 14,113 agency listings and the main directory has over 750 pages.

2011 was the first time the company had offered regional directories. These were developed because a number of users were interested in resources specific to their area. Each regional directories contain the same 50 chapters that are included in the Main directory. However, the regional directories only include the resources for the counties identified for their region. These regional directories are as follows:

1. Northern Alabama (14 Counties-Tennessee state line to Cullman)
   Cherokee, Colbert, Cullman, Dekalb, Franklin, Jackson, Lauderdale, Lawrence, Limestone, Madison, Marion, Marshall, Morgan, Winston.
2. North Central Alabama (16 Counties-Birmingham Metro/from Mississippi to Georgia)
   Bibb, Blount, Calhoun, Clay, Cleburne, Etowah, Fayette, Jefferson, Lamar, Pickens, Randolph, Saint Clair, Shelby, Talladega, Tuscaloosa, Walker.
3. South Central Alabama (19 Counties-Chilton County to Dallas County)
   Autauga, Bullock, Chambers, Chilton, Coosa, Dallas, Elmore, Green, Hale, Lee, Lowndes, Macon, Marengo, Montgomery, Perry, Russell, Sumter, Tallapoosa, Wilcox.
4. Southern & Gulf Alabama (18 Counties-South of Montgomery to Florida state)
   Baldwin, Barbour, Butler, Choctaw, Clark, Coffee, Conecuh, Covington, Crenshaw, Dale, Escambia, Geneva, Henry, Houston, Mobile, Monroe, Pike, Washington.