Out with the Old and In with the New!

Week of October 8, 2015

This past Friday was an amazing Rotary Club Service Day!

CCYA CEO with Rotary members

Six Cobb Rotary Clubs awarded CCYA a collaborative Rotary grant to replace bedroom furniture in Open Gate (OG) and Life Works (LW) – new beds, mattresses, desks and dressers – as well as new flooring for the Open Gate bedrooms! Long overdue needs for CCYA youth!

The name of the $20,000 grant we won is the Kathy Myers Memorial Competitive Grant. She was a Rotarian in the North Fulton Rotary Club. This was a competitive grant among the 69 Rotary Clubs in Rotary District 6900. Chad Pendley and Charles Lassiter from the Marietta Metro Rotary (where our board member Kay Anderson is a member and past president) prepared the grant application with CCYA as the beneficiary. The six club collaborative won one of three competitive grants awarded (each worth $20,000), which were selected from among 23 submitted grant applications.

Volunteers led by Marietta Metro Rotary Club member Charles Lassiter came in the rain on Friday and worked tirelessly to take out the old furniture and bring in the new!

In addition to the $20,000 grant, the Six Rotary Clubs made financial contributions toward this project, totaling $9,000:
$2,500 Marietta Metro Rotary Club (lead club on the grant application & the project)
$2,500 North Cobb Rotary Club
$2,000 East Cobb Rotary Club
$1,000 Smyrna Rotary Club
$,1000 South Cobb Rotary Club
$1,000 Vinings Rotary Club

Thus, the $20,000 grant and the $9,000 contributed above comprised a total project budget of $29,000 and was expended by the Rotary Club to purchase flooring of the OG bedrooms as well as bedroom furniture for OG and LW (bed frames, mattresses, dressers) and desks and chairs for LW.

Before: Open Gate twin beds

After: Open Gate twin beds

The Vinings Rotary Club was unable to send volunteers (due to one of its own projects that same day), but the other five Rotary Clubs each sent volunteers for Friday. We are so grateful to these Cobb Rotary Clubs for their philanthropy and volunteer service! What Great Day of Service! THANK YOU COBB ROTARY CLUBS!

Week of June 1,2015

Thank you to the Marietta Daily Journal for their article on our new outdoor recreation area!

June 4, 2015 Marietta Daily Journal

Marietta Daily Journal (GA) Published: June 4, 2015

‘Our kids are strong’: Youth home in Marietta celebrates 30 years with new recreational facility  

The Center for Children and Young Adults, a group home for youth, is celebrating its 30th anniversary tonight with a ribbon-cutting for a new outdoor recreational area.  Center board member Mike DeWitt said the event is a celebration of 30 years of service in Cobb and the Greater Atlanta Area.  “People can take campus tours and they’re going to have basketball games with the kids with ‘celebrity’ referees,” DeWitt said.

The center is made up of a three-building campus — at 2221 Austell Road near Osborne High School — and offers a dormitory-type setting for up to 39 young people at a time. Residents range from age 7 to 20.  Center CEO Kim Borna, a former child abuse lawyer, said the new facilities were paid for through a $100,000 grant from Atlanta-based charity A Million Matters. Included in the new facilities are a full volleyball court, full basketball court, two four-square playing areas, barbecue area and pavilions.

“We went from having one basketball goal by the dumpster in the loading dock, which is a horrible, smelly, awful place, for 30 years,” Borna said. “It (now) has a full basketball court and it has six goals, so we can even do two half-courts, which is great.”  She said the improvements will vastly expand what the center will be able to offer its residents.

“We have over 200 people from the metro Atlanta community volunteer every year, and a lot of them come in and do barbecues, activities, games, life-skills and bringing meals to the kids, so this is giving us a whole new area for our volunteers to spend time and engage with the kids,” Borna said.

PROVIDING A HOME

The Center for Children and Young Adults is a nonprofit with an annual operating budget averaging $2.6 million. Borna said the center is mostly funded by state contract, county grants, private grants and individual donations. “There’s a lot of generosity in Cobb County and the Atlanta Metro Area for the center,” Borna said.  She said Cobb County deeded a property on Fairground Street behind Zaxby’s to the center, which the center leases to State Human Services and receives rental income from.

Additionally, Borna said The Circle for Children has held an annual fundraiser for the past eight years that has raised between $75,000 and $110,000 for the center each year. Borna also said The Circle for Children provides a birthday cake for every child in the center every year. “We serve about 154 kids a year with nearly half coming from Fulton and half from Cobb, and these women make sure every youth gets their own birthday cake, which is huge,” Borna said. “The Circle for Children is the best partner that anyone could have and we’re very grateful to partner with them.”

DeWitt said the center offers a safe and nurturing environment for children and young people who don’t have anywhere else to go. “Essentially, what they do is provide emergency and ongoing shelter for youth who have been abused, neglected or otherwise abandoned by their parents, whoever their caregivers are, so they’re in a pretty desperate situation,” DeWitt said. “If you think about it, they come in (from) a lot of pretty traumatic situations and (the center) offers them not only shelter but a home.”

Borna said the center has a range of therapeutic services, such as animal-assisted therapy with four therapy dogs, art therapy and music therapy. It has a music director, choir, band, step team and photography club. The center also provides three meals a day and transportation to schools or jobs.

THE CHILDREN

Borna said children come to the center through a variety of circumstances, including drug-addicted parents, homelessness, domestic abuse or what she characterized as “unsafe, unwilling or unavailable caregivers.”  She said some stay for less than 30 days but the majority are at the center for 90 days or more.  Each young person who comes to us comes with a really different and unique story,” Borna said. “A lot of our kids suffer chronic trauma, not just an acute, one-time event.”  Borna said the children in the center are not juvenile delinquents, which she said is a mistake a lot of people have made.  “We really do not like it when people in the community want to confuse us with the Juvenile Detention Center … They are not in this situation because of something they have done,” Borna said. “Some of my kids have obituaries hanging on their wall because their parents are deceased.”

Borna said she thinks highly of the children in the center.  “My kids are amazing kids. I think they’re brave and courageous,” Borna said. “I’d just love for people to know and admire our kids, not feel sorry for them, because our kids are strong and they are working hard for themselves.”

East Cobber Aug 2013 Empty Nesters

US Rider News Oct 2013

MARIETTA DAILY JOURNAL

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2013

A beary special musical

by Sally Litchfield The Marietta Daily Journal

September 24, 2013 11:57 PM | 150 views | 0  | 5  |  |

Staff/Jeff Stanton Merrill Baker, right, director of development for the Center For Children and Young Adults, checks to see if her promotional sign for the Oct. 5 appearance of the Berenstain Bears will fit on The Strand Theatre sidewalk signage. Helping Baker is Baileigh Borna, 7, whose mother Kim Borna is director of the center. Baileigh also holds some prized Berenstain Bears books for children.

On Oct. 5, “The Berenstain Bears Live! In Family Matters the Musical” comes to the Earl Smith Strand Theatre in Marietta for three shows at 11 a.m., 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Proceeds benefit the Center for Children & Young Adults.

Adapted from the classic children’s book series by Stan and Jan Berenstain, this show brings everyone’s favorite bear family to life in an exciting theatrical experience that kids and parents will treasure for many years to come.

The event is family friendly and family oriented.

“Family is something that all of our kids don’t have. We wanted to do an event that reflects how important family is and to raise awareness among families as to how lucky they are to be part of a family,” said Kim Borna, chief executive officer of CCYA. The Woodstock resident is married to David, and they have one daughter.

Started as an emergency shelter for Cobb County Department of Family and Children Services, CCYA’s mission is to provide a safe and nurturing environment with comprehensive services for homeless youth and young adults who have been abused, abandoned, neglected, or are at risk.

The nonprofit provides shelter and comprehensive services to children ages 12 to 17 and a transitional living program to help youth ages 18 to 20 who are transitioning out of care.

“We help (children) reunite with family members or we help find other permanent homes or transition to independent housing,” Borna said.

CCYA must sell all tickets at each show to exceed their goal of raising $20,000. The money raised will support CCYA’s services such as food, shelter, clothing, transportation to medical appointments and extra curricular activities such as band, music and sports.

“By coming out, supporters are letting everyone in the community know that family is important to them at the Family Matters event. They’re coming out to support the organization that helps kids that don’t have family to be able to succeed and transition into adulthood despite the challenges they have,” she said.

CCYA provides an invaluable support system to homeless youth.

“If the kids didn’t have CCYA, they would literally have nowhere to lay their heads down, and they would not have a safe place to sleep, food to eat or clothes on their back. It’s important that we provide that for these kids and help them with life skills education and educational support and therapeutic support so that they can grow into productive adults in our community,” Borna said.

Tickets start at $12.50 and are available at www.earlsmithstrand.org. Special VIB (Very Important Bear) tickets include the best house seats, Bear Cub favor bag, and a free pass to Sister Bear’s Birthday Party in the second floor Event Room with Bear Country games and fun activities. All Honey Bears younger than 1 year old can sit on Mama and Papa’s lap.

The Strand is at 117 North Park Square, Marietta.

To make a donation and learn more visit www.ccyakids.org.

Read more: The Marietta Daily Journal – A beary special musical

East Cobber Nov 2013

Marietta Daily Journal
November 26, 2012

MARIETTA — The Center for Children and Young Adults has been recognized by the state as the “Outstanding Agency of the Year” for 2012.

The local center, which was established 30 years ago, was honored for their work with young people during the Georgia Association of Homes and Services for Children’s annual conference on Nov. 15. This was the first time the center had received the award.

“The Board of Directors, staff and community volunteers have worked tirelessly over the past three years to transform CCYA from a youth shelter into a youth academy developing and preparing homeless, neglected and abused youth for self-sufficiency,” CEO Kim Borna said. “Receiving this award acknowledges all of our hard work and teamwork as a community and validates our commitment to Cobb’s most vulnerable citizens.”

Shellee Spagnoletto of east Cobb, who also serves as president of The Circle for Children, nominated CCYA for the honor in late October.

“Since Kim Borna took over as CEO in 2010, she has made some amazing transitions with the organization,” Spagnoletto said. “When I see the personal dedication, it’s just so motivating and inspiring. I think that she truly has made it a very loving atmosphere, and I think the kids really need that.”
This is the sixth year that members of The Circle for Children have decided to fundraise for the center. Over the past five years, they have raised nearly half a million dollars for it through an annual spring gala.

“We want to support organizations that really need us,” Spagnoletto said. “Typically we keep it at about three years to help, but we just love the CCYA.”

Additionally, about 260 members often volunteer with the center serving dinner to the kids or hosting parties or Easter egg hunts for children.

Maureen Lok of Marietta, a member of The Circle for Children and board chair for CCYA, has volunteered with the center for about 10 years as a master gardener.

“This award signifies the hard work that we’ve undertaken in the past to change the center from kind of a warehousing place to a home,” she said.

The center can serve up to 39 children between 12 and 21 years old in three different homes: Open Gate for girls, Another Chance for boys, and Life Works, which is a transitional living program for boys and girls 17 to 21 years old.

Merrill Baker, the center’s director of development, said, “These kids are without families, whether abandoned or their parents may be in prison or passed away.”

They accept children from all over the state and since 1982 have been home to more than 7,500 children.

“It was founded by several community leaders and organizations, including DFCS, Junior League and Kiwanis Clubs,” Baker said. “They all sort of came together because they needed a shelter for these kids.”

© mdjonline.com 2012

Marietta Patch
January 16, 2013

The Marietta-based Center of Children & Young Adults operates three long-term foster group homes serving Atlanta. Take a closer look at child abuse and neglect and children living in poverty in CobbCounty.

In Cobb in 2010, there were 829 incidents of child abuse and/or neglect and 34,347 children living in poverty, according to Georgia Family Connection Partnership: Kids Count. Statewide, there were 20,675 incidents of child abuse and neglect and 613,581 children in poverty.

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AJC investigation: State actions inadequate to halt group home’s long slide into anarchy

By Alan Judd, ajudd@ajc.com
The Atlanta Journal–Constitution

4:24 a.m. Monday, April 19, 2010

Even before the riot, state regulators found plenty wrong at the Downing Clark Center.

They said the group home for foster children had detained a resident in a filthy isolation room as long as 24 hours at a time. They cited the facility because employees had been too distracted to notice suicide attempts, had stood by as one resident attacked another, and had propositioned teenagers placed there for protection.

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AJC investigation: Children needing homes get placed in harm’s way with few repercussions

By Alan Judd

ajudd@ajc.com
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

7:00 a.m. Sunday, April 18, 2010

Georgia officials decided last year that a rules violation by a private foster care agency was so egregious it warranted one of the toughest possible penalties.

The agency, state records show, had inappropriately placed two children in the same foster home. One was a 17–year–old who had engaged in incest and other sexual activity. The other was 8, autistic and mute, with a history of being abused and an IQ of 16. The boys at first shared a bedroom; ultimately, they shared a bed.

The foster agency’s punishment: a $300 fine.

What happened at the Trek Program, a foster agency based in Fort Oglethorpe, and how the state responded illustrate the scope of problems in Georgia’s growing system of publicly funded but privately operated foster care, according to an investigation by The Atlanta Journal–Constitution.

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Atlanta Journal–Constitution (AJC) Articles – On Sunday and Monday of this week, Allan Judd of the Atlanta Journal–Constitution wrote two articles, “LAX REGULATION, NUMEROUS ABUSES FOUND IN INVESTIGATION OF FOSTER CARE SYSTEM,” and “RIOT AT DOWNING CLARK MIRRORS FOSTER CARE MORASS”. In more than 1500 state inspections and investigations that range in scope and severity, the AJC spotlighted the most serious violations. From these reports, generalizations and assumptions were made to insinuate that foster care and group home agencies are operating with little oversight and are violating rules with little or no consequences. The reporter chose to pick his facts to support a view that showed a lack of understanding about residential child care when in fact, the vast majority of agencies provide excellent care and go the extra mile providing services that are well above base level compliance.
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