Troubled Youth Find Father, Mother Figures at Girls and Boys Towns
by Randall Murphree
August 10, 2005
(AgapePress) - For Jeff Everett, Father's Day isn't quite the same as it is for most dads. Oh, he and his wife Jenny will enjoy their two children, Orian (7) and Olsen (1). But they also serve as surrogate parents for eight teenage girls, residents of Girls and Boys Town (GBT) in Omaha, Nebraska. Everett thrives on the extra attention -- and the responsibility."There's a little more going on here than in the regular household," said Everett. "It's much more exciting. Last year, the girls took a big T-shirt and put their handprints on it." Such mementoes are treasures for Jeff and Jenny Everett. They have been family-teachers at GBT for six years, one of some 75 couples who temporarily fill the roles of mom and dad for kids in need.
The young men and women (ages 9-17) who live at GBT today come from a vast range of family problem situations. Some are placed there by the courts, some by their families, some come by their own choice, and others through unique circumstances.
Johnny is one of those unique residents. The 16-year-old Iraqi youth was befriended by U.S. troops in Iraq after they found him without family and living on the streets. When the unit was being redeployed, they didn't want to leave him behind, so they made arrangements for him to come to GBT.
The ministry's goal is to meet whatever needs their youth have -- get off drugs or alcohol, accept academic challenge, use their God-given gifts, learn to respect others, develop healthy family and peer relationships, or build self-confidence and self-respect.
More Than a Home
Everything points toward the students being able to return to their homes and families. On average, a student's stay at GBT is about 18 months. While there, they live in a family setting with six to eight boys or girls in one of 75 homes on the 1,500-acre campus. They attend either Wegner Middle School or Boys Town High School (BTHS).
The high school graduates about 70 seniors each year. At BTHS they have been prepared academically and vocationally. Junior ROTC is a popular program and about 30 percent of BTHS grads go from high school into the military.
The health occupations department prepares students for a job in the medical field, perhaps as a nurse's assistant. BTHS goes the extra mile, arranging for their students to take the state licensing exam before they graduate high school.
"For the last three years, our students have been 100 percent in passing the state exam," said Jennifer Buth, assistant principal and reading coordinator.
Buth has been at GBT for ten years and is involved with education curriculum and models that are being emulated all over the nation. She travels to other schools, including public school districts, to train teachers in the GBT reading program. A hallmark of every GBT program is that it is heavy on moral development as well as academic content.
Colorful Past, Constructive Present
Boys Town was founded in 1917 by Father Edward Flanagan, a Catholic priest. Fr. Flanagan had encountered countless young boys living on the streets, and just could not get them off his heart.
Finally, no longer able to ignore the growing problem of homeless children, he rented a house in downtown Omaha and took in his first five boys. The house was soon overflowing, and the home moved to a farm some 10 miles outside downtown, and that once-remote farmland has become its permanent home. Now, on any given day, some 575 boys and girls live at GBT. Girls were first admitted in 1979.
The early years of GBT are depicted in the 1938 Boys Town movie starring Spencer Tracey as Father Flanagan and Mickey Rooney as one of the boys. It is one of those enduring films that continue to re-air on classic movie channels.
In those early years, Boys Town athletes traveled across the country on the Flexible Flyer bus, and Father Flanagan's Juvenile Entertainers used a 1920s circus wagon to tour the Midwest. The early Boys Town chorus sang around the world. The bus, the wagon and Tracey's Oscar for best actor (portraying Father Flanagan) are on display in GBT's Hall of History.
Keeping pace with the needs of children and families has always been paramount on the GBT agenda, especially in recent years. The ministry now has 19 locations in 15 states and Washington, DC, and it offers a variety of constructive family-related services.
In addition to residential services for troubled youth, GBT offers emergency shelter, family preservation services, the Research Institute for Child and Family Studies, and a wealth of parenting materials through Boys Town Press.
In 2004, more than 500,000 children and parents used the GBT National Hotline, and nearly one million were served through outreach and professional training programs. It is indeed one of the nation's premier programs designed to preserve and strengthen the family.
Randall Murphree, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is editor of AFA Journal, a monthly publication of the American Family Association. This article appeared in the June 2005 issue.
