What they wrote:
"I hope for a family"
Alexis, 9, said she hopes to have a whole family one day.
"I didn't just want to have just me, my sister and my mom," Alexis said. "I wanted to have my brother and a dad."
Alexis suffers from hyperventilation syndrome and wears a tracheotomy tube throughout the day. At night, a ventilator assists her.
Dana Bailey, director of marketing communications and special events for Homeward Bound, said that Alexis still is active. "This does not stop her at all."
Alexis' mother Kristin and sister Mersadez were at the unveiling of the children's photos on Friday. Kristin said she was impressed.
"I heard a little bit about it, but I didn't get the gist," she said. "Just bits and pieces."
Kristin said Alexis wants to be the owner of a store that sells expensive clothes - or become a veterinarian.
"I hope for food"
When Jesika thought of things she hoped for, two came to mind.
"Food and a loving family," she said.
She said it was good to see her picture of a refrigerator full of food on a greeting card. She enjoyed being a photographer.
"You get to take pictures of things you like and you hope for," Jesika said.
The 8-year-old wants to be a clothing designer when she's older.
"It was a surprise to see what the kids did," her mother Jennifer said. "You realize there's really more to them than just playing and being kids."
Jennifer also was surprised to see that the children came up with the picture ideas by themselves.
"This is all them, this has nothing to do with us," Jennifer said.
"I hope to help people"
Listening to Mersadez, most people wouldn't know she's just 7 years old.
"I care for people, and I really hope for the homeless that they get well and they get help," Mersadez said.
She said she was told to take a picture of "what she hoped for."
"It's about that you care for people, and you want to help them," she said. "You go and say, 'Would you like help?' "
She said she enjoyed taking pictures.
"I like it . . . when you go like this and that," Mersadez said, mimicking the motions for portrait and landscape angles.
She and sister Alexis have been at Homeward Bound for a year with their mom, Kristin.
The photos are "really beautiful," Kristin said. "To see a little girl have such an inspiration that can be so simple, it just blows me away."
Kristin said Mersadez wants to be a hip-hop dancer when she grows up.
"That's her passion," Kristin said.
"I hope to play on a baseball team"
Vincent, 11, wants to play any baseball position but center field.
He wants to be in the major leagues with the Arizona Diamondbacks, his favorite team, or the Colorado Rockies, because he wants to live in Colorado.
He said he really enjoyed taking pictures.
"I thought of it as a really good experience because you get to keep those forever as a memory," he said.
He likes baseball because players do amazing things, like hitting home runs.
"You could throw, like, 100-mile-an-hour fastballs, which is really fast," he said, "faster than your modern car."
Vincent was a subject in a Republic article in August when he first took photographs for "Pictures of Hope."
Some Valley residents saw the article and donated baseball gear and three tickets to Homeward Bound for Vincent to attend a Diamondbacks game with his brother Dillon, 7.
At Chase Field, Vincent received a souvenir: a foam hand that signals No. 1. He passed it on to Dillon.
The home team won the game over the visiting Cincinnati Reds.
"One of their rare wins," Vincent said.
He said that his mother recently watched him hit balls in a batting cage and now she calls him "slugger."
His favorite players are outfielder Adam Dunn and pitchers Brandon Lyon and Randy Johnson.
