Boysville Celebrates 65 Years of Caring!

Jan 17, 2009

By Steve Davidson
Contributing Writer
The Herald Newspaper

“Growing up, my parents taught me what not to do as a parent. Boysville taught me what to do as a parent.”

For Dan Gee, the father of two young children and an alumnus of Boysville, Inc., Boysville’s Nov. 8 birthday bash celebrating 65 years of caring for abused and neglected children was indeed worth the celebration.

After all, the 2001 Judson High School graduate and alumnus of Southern Illinois University knows all to well what life can be like for a child struggling to grow up, minus a caring mother and devoted father.

Colorful balloons, pony rides, bouncing games, clowns, barbecue, music, the Spurs Coyote, a petting zoo, an oversized birthday cake, all lent themselves appropriately to the Converse Boysville campus where the 65th birthday celebration took place for one of the country’s most established and celebrated childcare facilities.

“It’s been 65 years of doing the same thing over and over again, caring for children in crisis,” said Beth Reinhardt, Boysville director of community relations. “We care for children who can’t remain in their house.”

Gee, who lived at Boysville with his younger brother from the time he was eight until he was 18, recalls the horrifying reality involved when a child no longer has a home and what it means for a child to receive no love, no caring and little devotion.

For Gee and his younger brother, having parents so heavily involved in drugs that the parents would sell the family home just to make good on paying off debts owed, proved to be the unwinding of his family. In short order, not only did the two boys have no home to call their own, but no parents as well.

“My dad and grandmother eventually dropped my brother and me off at Boysville,” said Gee from his home in Seattle, where he serves in the United States Navy.

Like so many other Boysville alumnus in attendance at the 65th birthday celebration, and those present in spirit from across the nation, Gee does not focus on the tragic past that brought him to the steps of the historic organization, nationally recognized for meeting the needs of Bexar County and South Texas children. Gee genuinely appreciates the transition, physically and emotionally, from the dark locale where he once stood as an abandoned child to the brighter place he now resides.

“I had no sense of direction or discipline when I got to Boysville,” said Gee. Not until he joined the Navy and was going through his early training, did Gee come to first realize how much his time at Boysville had impacted him, that time beyond the psychological and emotional.

“It didn’t take me long to see that I was at an advantage over the other people,” Gee laughed. “Unlike most of the others, I was able to do my own laundry, work a paint brush, and take care of a yard.”

Another Boysville alumnus appreciative of the organization’s 65 years of devoted service to the area’s children is Alamo Heights’ John Hanna. The Alamo Heights Junior School’s (AHJS) physical education teacher and coach spent two years at Boysville, his 8th- and 9th-grade years.

While a young boy growing up in Houston, Hanna’s father passed away. His mother was busy with work. “There was no one at home,” said Hanna. “I started hanging out with the wrong crowd. I got picked up by the police. I started getting kicked out of schools.”

Coach Hanna has come a long way from the troubled young man who found himself alone at the doorsteps of Boysville in 1988. Hanna currently serves as a board member for Boysville and was recently a September 2008 recipient of a “Spotlights on Excellence” award for his enduring and creative work with young children at AHJS.

For Hanna there is no doubt in his mind that his experience at Boysville impacted him positively and that he uses that experience in his teaching and coaching at AHJS.

“Being at Boysville taught me a lot about responsibility for myself and others,” said Hanna. “I learned something about discipline and a structured routine. I learned something about what can be gained in a loving environment.

“There’s something good in every kid. We need to find it and make good use of it. It’s important that children know someone cares and is willing to help out,” he said, adding, “Hopefully, one day we will not need a Boysville.”

Until that time comes, Boysville appears poised to continue on its way toward many more years of meeting its mission of providing a safe family environment for children in need, children poised to become responsible, loving adults, adults unafraid to also serve their community as volunteers and stewards.

Twenty-five-year-old Boysville alum Diamond Nichols may just be the kind of wide shoulders that carries the many young lives still associated with Boysville well into this new millennium. Recently graduating from Wayland Baptist University where he received a degree in justice administration, he is currently employed with Boysville as the organization’s recreational program assistant.

The 2001 graduate from Judson High School came to Boysville in 1999 due to situations at home that were preventing him from attending school. “When I came to Boysville I had over 60 days of truancy,” Nichols said. “There were just too many bad situations at home preventing me from going to high school. Where I was growing up was a pretty bad situation.”

Not prepared to let the young man fall to the side, Boysville staff quickly jumped into action, making certain Nichols received everything he needed in order to complete high school and fulfill his dream, of going to college.

Before long, Nichols was attending summer and night school. “I graduated on time,” Nichols said with a proud smile. “Knowing that people actually care about you makes such a difference.”

According to Nichols, he plans to use his negative experience at home and what he gained from his time spent at Boysville to try to change the lives of children currently enrolled within the organization — and those likely to one day be enrolled due to tragedies beyond their ability to alter.

“I hope I can make a positive impact in their lives like everybody did for me while I was here at Boysville,” Nichols said. “When the kids find out I’m an alumnus, (they) begin to see that they, too, can become anything they choose to be. It’s awesome.”

Perhaps Coach Hanna’s dream that one day there will no longer be a need for a Boysville will indeed become a reality. Until then, however, the historic organization making its home on 78 acres on Loop 1604 near Judson High School appears fully prepared to continue its mission of providing for children in need — all children.

The historic institution has come a long way from its earliest days when the organization’s founder, the Rev. Don Holliman, took in orphaned, homeless and abandoned boys off of the streets of San Antonio’s Travis Park, placing them in what would become the first home for Boysville, the “Mansion” on Avenue A.

Beyond accepting girls into their program resulting from a collective decision to keep siblings together, Boysville has expanded its care by accepting infants onto the campus.

It would appear as though Boysville, at the tender age of 65, is determined to continue caring for a community’s most precious resource.

“Happy Birthday” does not seem recognition enough for an organization that has done, and continues to do, so very much for so many.