Girlstown Foundation to hold gala night at Soaring Eagle Resort
By William Zilke, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: April 3, 2008
The Girlstown Foundation, the venerable Belleville institution has been helping change the lives of young women for 50 years now.
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Girlstown Foundation president Avis White has been there for the entire half century.
Avis' husband Don white was the assistant principal of Belleville High School when the young couple moved here from Portland, MI in 1953.
"The General Federation of Women's Clubs originally wanted Ann Arbor as the site of Girlstown because they had free clinics and mental, dental facilities there," she said.
"However, Ann Arbor felt they had their hands full."
The fact that there also was a campus full of young men also was taken into consideration.
"Nellie Wooten-Barnes said, "Belleville is the right spot."
Charles Cozadd owned a large Victorian house that stood on North Liberty between Third and Fifth streets and took up the three lots where houses were built in the 1990s.
"The home was so big, aside from the girls living there, they had executive director Joyce Girard, a housekeeper and a gardener," White said.
One of the philosophies of Girlstown, rare at the time, was that you cannot a teach a child to live in a home by putting them in an institution.
Due to confidentiality laws, White was unable to share some of the heart warming success stories of Girlstown, but she did relate two interesting cases.
In one case, in the early 1970s, the child was taken away because the mother had a boyfriend only five years older than the daughter. Drugs may also have been an issue, she said.
When the father found out his daughter had been taken away, he did manage to track his daughter down and reunite with her as a family.
In another case, four siblings were removed from their home and brought to Girlstown.
They were placed in foster programs but kept near to each other, with the foster parents understanding it would be a long term placement.
Call it an act of God, fate or just plain luck, a blood relative somehow found the siblings and after a thorough background check, took all four siblings in as their own children.
The Belleville Girlstown was the pilot program that the General Federation of Women's Clubs would eventually set up in each of their seven districts.
"In 1971, there were 30,000 members and the idea was that the federation would now have a $30,000 budget," White said.
However, times have changed and the money is harder to come by.
"They needed someone to come in and fill the gaps," she said.
The new Loch Rio Residential Treatment, the proper name for the Belleville Girlstown living facility, offers a five to one client to staff ratio, individual and group therapy and permanency planning and independent living skills training.
The Girlstown 50th Gala will be held June 7 at the Soaring Eagle Resort in Mt. Pleasant.
There will be a reception and book signing for actor, childcare advocate and former Miami Dolphin Victor Rivas Rivers.
Besides dining and dancing, it is an evening to raise the spirit and truly make a difference in the lives of those who are rebuilding theirs at such an early age.
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