News
Congratulations Cory and John Richardson-Lauve
VHBG Teaching-Parents Cory and John Richardson-Lauve are the 2007 recipients of the Teaching-Family Association's highest honor, the Lonnie & Elaine Phillips Award for Practitioners of the Year. The award was presented at the 30th Annual Teaching-Family Association Conference in Washington, D.C. in November. This award recognizes the Richardson-Lauves for the exceptional quality of their work and dedication in providing direct care to children. Cory and John have been Teaching-Parents at VHBG since 2003.
Bud Milner Elected International Teaching Family Association President
Robert A. (Bud) Milner, VHBG's Director of Child & Family Services, has been elected president of the national Teaching-Family Association. His two year term in office begins in 2008 following a year as president-elect.
Bud has spent his entire career in the Teaching-Family model, first as a Teaching-Parent and subsequently in supervisory, managerial and executive positions at four different organizations. Prior to joining VHBG in September, Bud worked as a private consultant to many child welfare organizations interested in implementing the Teaching Family model of care to better serve children and families.
Bud, a native of Columbus, Ohio, holds a B.A. degree in Humanities from the Ohio State University and an M.S. degree from Nova Southeastern University in Child and Youth Care Administration.
United Way Gifts
United Way Donor Codes for VHBG
For donors who participate in the United Way Campaign:
- Local Governments & Schools Campaign: 263
- CVC Virginia Employees campaign: 3030
- United Way (everyone else): 3037
John G. Wood School Dedication
VHBG Dedicates New School
Virginia Home for Boys and Girls dedicated its beautiful, state of the art John G. Wood School in a ribbon-cutting ceremony on the VHBG campus on August 15. Approximately 250 donors, board members, current and former staff and members of the community attended the event. The ceremony was followed by the 2nd Annual Community Day, a 
festival of food and fun to honor staff, board members and volunteers and to show appreciation for members of the community who support the mission of VHBG.
Since 1974 John G. Wood School has served residents of VHBG, the Youth Emergency Shelter and day students from the community in its old basement quarters. With construction complete on the new school building, students and teachers eagerly anticipate starting the 2007 fall term in the new facility featuring 16,000 square feet of space including a music and art center, library and media center, computer lab, conference rooms and a health services wing.
In the past 5 years, 50 students have transitioned back to public school and 100% of the seniors returning have graduated. It is accredited by the Virginia Association of Independent Specialized Education Facilities and licensed by the Virginia Department of Education. It is one of the four services that VHBG provides for at-risk children. The other programs are Residential Services, Youth Emergency Shelter and Independent Living.
Virginia Association of Fundraising Executives Names Loren Hatcher Rising Star
Loren Hatcher, Director of Development at Virginia Home for Boys and Girls, has been named the 2007 Rising Star by the Virginia Association of Fund Raising Executives (VAFRE). The Rising Star Award is made annually to a VAFRE member who exhibits excellent potential and who has demonstrated remarkable talents at an early stage in their fund-raising career. Loren received this award at the VAFRE Annual Awards Ceremony on April 3 rd at the Roslyn Conference Center.
Loren graduated from Longwood University in 2001, receiving its prestigious Citizen Leader Award for her volunteer activities. She was Longwood’s Assistant Director of Annual Giving from 2001-2003. Before coming to VHBG she served as the Director of Development at Historic Richmond Foundation. In 2004, she became the Assistant Director of Development at VHBG and was named Director of Development in September 2006.
Chris Schultz Receives Stettinius Leadership Award
Executive Director Chris Schultz has been named a recipient of the 2006 Stettinius Award for Nonprofit Leadership, an awards program managed and distributed by The Community Foundation, serving Richmond and central Virginia. The Stettinius Fund For Nonprofit Leadership was established by Cadmus Communications Corporation on the occasion of Wallace Stettinius’ retirement from the Cadmus Board of Directors. Mr. Stettinius is a member of the Home’s Emeritus Board and Past President of the Board of Governors. The purpose of the Fund is to promote effective organizational leadership by recognizing and supporting outstanding professionals who have demonstrated the potential to become the future leaders of the community.
The Board of The Community Foundation recognized Chris for his contributions to VHBG and his leadership in the Richmond area nonprofit field. They have approved a grant of $10,000 for Chris to attend the Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management Seminar at Harvard University and to travel to Utah Youth in Salt Lake City and Closer to Home Family Services in Alberta, Canada to study best practices in the field of human services.
VHBG Teaching-Parent Couple in Richmond Times-Dispatch
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Couple has found their way 'to make a difference'
BY BILL LOHMANN
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
In a way, this all started with a bump on the head.
It wasn't your standard bump on the noggin. It was a severe one -- life-changing, really -- that Dean Baldwin suffered when he banged his head getting into his car in September 2000.
He wound up with a blood clot the size of a baseball on his brain. He was placed on life support and underwent emergency surgery during which he had to be revived twice.
When he woke up and realized what he'd been through, the gregarious car salesman got to thinking.
"As much as I loved the car business -- I don't want to sound boastful, but I helped people but as good as that was I wanted to be able to do more," Baldwin said. "I realized it wasn't about the money. It was about family. It was about taking care of my family and trying to make a difference in kids' lives."
He and his wife, Renee, quit their jobs, sold their home in Tallahassee, Fla., and eventually became house parents at the Florida United Methodist Children's Home near Deltona. In 2004, they moved to Virginia to be closer to Dean's ailing mother and became certified "teaching parents" at the Virginia Home for Boys and Girls in western Henrico County. They oversee a household of eight boys plus their 7-year-old daughter, Leah, who came to live with them in Florida as a 16-month-old foster child. They also adopted a teenage girl from the group home in Florida who has since moved out on her own.
"The Baldwins are incredibly remarkable people," said Chris Schultz, executive director of the Virginia Home. "They've dedicated their life's work to helping kids. We've got an incredibly cool bunch of people here, and the Baldwins exemplify that."
Dean, 48, and Renee, 44, have been married for 20 years. They raised Renee's two biological daughters and now have five grandchildren and a sixth on the way. They worked long hours in their previous careers -- Dean routinely put in 70 to 80 hours a week at a car dealership; Renee was a full-time paralegal -- but found time to be children's pastors at their church and foster parents.
"At one time, we had five [foster] kids, four of them in car seats," recalled Renee.
They didn't sleep much.
The Baldwins are people of faith and believe "God's hand was in" their lifestyle makeover.
With the major drop in income, they've dialed down their spending, although they've managed to outfit their residence at the Virginia Home with such items as a big-screen television, bicycles and a grandfather clock in the foyer by attending auctions at storage units.
Now, the only home they own is on wheels -- a massive motor home parked outside their quarters. It's all they need.
Most of their time is spent parenting their daughter and the teenage boys who generally come to them from broken homes or difficult family situations and might stay with them for weeks or years. They live like one, big family, sharing meals in the sprawling house, as well as good times and difficult ones. As "teaching parents," the Baldwins instruct the boys in social and life skills. They encourage and discipline, and help with homework during the school year and go on family outings. Mostly, they try to teach right from wrong and otherwise be a positive force in their lives.
It is not a job for everyone.
"Some people don't give it a chance," Dean Baldwin said of group-home work in general. "Some of these kids can talk trash, and people get their feelings hurt. A lot of times, these are just scared kids who don't know any better. They're used to people hurting them and abandoning them. It's hard in many cases to earn their trust."
The Baldwins delight in the letters and photographs of weddings and newborns they receive from young people they have worked with in the past. Then they know those kids with difficult pasts are getting on with their lives and that maybe they had a hand in getting them headed in the right direction.
"They say kids keep you young. They actually do -- to a point," Dean Baldwin said with a laugh. "We're not bored very much."
Contact staff writer Bill Lohmann at wlohmann@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6639.
This story can be found at:
Richmond Times Dispatch