CHILDREN’S HOPE: A STABLE HOME, A LOVING FAMILY,
A COMMUNITY OF SUPPORT

Santa Rosa Press Democrat July 26, 2006 page: B6

If you asked most kids what is on their wish list, you would probably hear about iPods, Legos, Barbies and books. If you asked a foster child, their wish list might include a reunion with a brother or sister, a stable home, an adult who loves them. In August the wishes of 24 foster children will come true. That’s when the first phase of the Children’s Village will open. The second phase, which will provide homes for another 24 children, will be complete in 2008. The children – who’ve been abused and neglected – will live with their siblings and a house “parent” or “ grandparent” in one of eight houses built on the two-acre site.

In these homes, there will be arguments over bedtime, homework and chores. There will be discipline and schedules. There will be regular meals, birthday parties, Christmas trees and Halloween decorations. There will be love and laughter. In other words, families will be created.

By writing a check to support the ongoing operation of the village, you can make a wish come true. Go to www.thechildrensvillage.com or call 566-7044 for more information.

"Children's Village closer to reality"
Joe Montana's family
boosts effort for foster kids

By JIM DOYLE
THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

It was a simple, passionate idea: create nurturing, secure homes for abused, neglected, and abandoned children trapped in California's foster care system. The goal: to end the instability that many face when they are tossed from one family to the next.

But turning this inspired vision into the Children's Village of Sonoma County has taken nearly eight years of toil by the project's founder, Lia Rowley, and legions of volunteers, including ex-49ers quarterback Joe Montana, his wife, Jennifer, and their two teenage daughters.

Groundbreaking for the Children's Village, a cross between a group home and foster care, is planned this summer on a former dairy in southeast Santa Rosa. Eight foster family homes, six apartment units for seniors acting as surrogate grandparents and a common building will be constructed on the semirural site.

"We're going to try to keep it, as much as possible, noninstitutional," said Rowley. "It will really be a family-like setting. Hopefully, it will be a place where the children will foster a sense of belonging."

Rowley, who serves as the organization's executive director, has worked with children and their families for some 30 years, often as an adviser to Sonoma County's child protective services unit and as a behavioral consultant for families and treatment centers.

Although similar projects exist overseas and also in Florida and Illinois, the Children's Village is a first for California: the creation of family- style homes in a multigenerational environment for foster children and their siblings.

"How can you deny these kids the simple little things in life that we all take for granted on a day-to-day basis?" Montana says on the project's Web site, www.thechildrensvillage.com. "For me, that's what it's about, our kids."

Montana and his wife are honorary co-chairs of the project's fund-raising campaign. The Montanas live on a 500-acre estate in the Sonoma foothills.

Children's advocates welcome the project's innovative approach.

A child in foster care moves an average of nine times before he or she grows up, experts say, and about two-thirds of foster siblings in Sonoma County get separated.

The Children's Village is "critically necessary," said Tara Harvey, a deputy county counsel for Sonoma County. "We have a number of siblings groups that we do remove from their parents, and it's often hard to find a foster home that can take some of them, let alone all of them."

A chain of foster care facilities with similar goals to Rowley's independent project was started in Austria in 1949 with the opening of the SOS Children's Village, which spawned about 435 SOS villages worldwide -- mostly in less-developed countries. Two SOS villages were established in the 1990s in Florida and Illinois; a third was opened last year in Chicago. Hope Meadows, an independent children's village in Rantoul, Ill., hires elders as foster grandparents.

"I've been in situations where children have been through 30 placements. It's ridiculous," Rowley said. "These children can stay with us, we hope, for as long as they need to. It will be their home, their community."

One or two full-time, live-in foster parents will reside in six-bedroom, family-style homes with five or six children. Assistant parents will rotate among the homes, aided by seniors living in apartments.

Placement priority at the village will be for sibling groups of children. A trained staff and volunteers will assess the needs of each child as well as plan weekend and after-school activities, including counseling and tutoring.

Rowley founded the nonprofit Children's Village organization in 1999, two years after the slaying of Georgia Lee Moses, a 12-year-old Santa Rosa girl whose body was found in August 1997 near Highway 101 in Petaluma. Georgia lived in a poverty-stricken, troubled family and was last seen with an unidentified man. The case remains unsolved.

"I happened to have known Georgia, and because of her death, I was moved to do something about children in our society," Rowley said. She started meeting with people after she "saw some pretty horrendous things in my work and always wondered about something like a village for some of our children. .. . This one little girl's death won't be in vain."

Rowley and her administrative assistant are the only two paid staff members of Children's Village. But there are more than 80 volunteers including social workers, teachers, bankers and accountants who lend their skills.

Jennifer Montana approached Rowley last year and offered to help. Since then, the Montanas have done promotional work (he did a radio spot), appearances at fund-raising dinners, and auctioned autographed 49ers helmets.

The Montanas' eldest daughter, Alexandra, worked last summer as a Children's Village volunteer, helping with office work. Her younger sister, Elizabeth, raised funds for the village at the Human Race of Sonoma County, a popular charity event.

Donations from a foundation and an anonymous individual enabled Children's Village to purchase a site to build on. The 2.2-acre lot on Kawana Terrace Road is a parklike setting, with shade trees and a seasonal creek, across from a new suburb.

The village has staged dozens of fund-raising events including theatrical shows, garage sales, magic shows, dinners, raffles, silent auctions and a pro- am golf tournament. Tax-deductible donations have poured in from companies and individuals making monthly pledges or one-time gifts.

The organization has raised about $1 million in cash and in-kind donations, only $200,000 short of the amount needed to obtain a construction loan. Once ground is broken, Rowley plans to open the village 10 months later. An additional $500,000 is needed for startup costs, she said.

Phase I, designed by architect Tony Battaglia, will cost $3 million. It includes four family-style homes and three apartments for seniors. Construction of the entire project, including additional homes and apartments, along with a village center for administration and counseling services, will cost roughly $6 million.

"Miracles can happen," Rowley said. "It takes tremendous tenacity, but there's no way I could have done this without the support of all these people. ... I had to learn from scratch."