Tom Sanford, Project Patch founder and dedicated advocate for thousands of troubled teens, passed away in the early morning hours of Aug. 4, 2024 at the age of 80. He longed for heaven and spoke of it often, even as he struggled with advancing dementia.
Sanford knew hard knocks but also hard work. After a tough childhood, which he wrote about in his autobiography, The Wounded Healer, he graduated from Indiana Academy and worked his way through Andrews University where he met and married Bonnie Fike in 1966.
He took a few extra years to get through school while working full-time but, after graduating with a theology degree, Sanford began his pastoral ministry in Montana Conference in 1968 and was subsequently ordained in 1973.
It was there, while pastoring several multi-church districts, that he started recording one-minute health radio spots at the local radio station. Never one to shy away from asking, he proposed to the station manager that his spots could precede Paul Harvey, knowing he’d have an audience. It was a request that was granted and an early example of how Sanford negotiated his way through life.
The communities he pastored in also benefited health-wise when Sanford helped recruit Adventist physicians to the local hospital.
Sanford obtained his pilot’s license while in Montana to make visiting his parishioners easier. This skill would later be used to help him transport young people to foster homes and serve in the Civil Air Patrol as a chaplain and search pilot for nearly 20 years.
Sanford was an advocate and always had an ear for hurting teens. Receiving a call to pastor in Oregon Conference in 1975, Sanford found himself continually being asked to help young people who needed respite or out-of-home living arrangements.
He would offer to go to court with/for young people and was someone who became connected with the court system, eventually becoming Juvenile Services Commission chairperson in Hood River County. He became further involved in helping teens in crisis when he and his wife signed on as a secured home to house runaways through the Jail Alternative Program until a court hearing could be scheduled.
At one point in his ministry, he surveyed all the pastors in the conference to find out how many Adventist teens needed help. In the back of his mind, however, was the idea that he would request to transfer to whatever church didn’t have these problems, but God had a different idea.
Sanford was a dreamer who placed unwavering faith in God to do big things. Taking the first big leap of faith, and with approval from conference administration, he left pastoral ministry in 1984 to start Project Patch.
One administrator said he’d probably help all the Adventist kids who needed help in a year and then he could come back to a church pulpit. That didn’t happen. It was a small and shaky start to a ministry that has grown and blossomed over the last 40 years into a fully licensed and accredited residential behavioral treatment facility for ages 12–17.
Sanford always said he wanted to “make an event to cause people to rally!” He worked tirelessly to make that happen. Project Patch, to date, has helped thousands of young people with the support of individuals who have come alongside and partnered with him through the years.
Sanford is survived by his wife, Bonnie; daughter, Kelly Hagele, and her husband, Chuck; son, Craig and his wife, Eniko; brother, Dale; sisters, Diana and Beverly; five grandchildren; and numerous nieces and nephews.
A memorial service for Sanford will be held at Adventist Community Church, 9711 NE St. Johns Road, in Vancouver, Washington, on Saturday, Nov. 2, at 3 p.m. Livestreaming will be available on the Project Patch website. Memorial gifts in Sanford’s name may be made to Project Patch. Learn more at projectpatch.org/tom.
Tom and Bonnie Sanford
