Chicago                                                                   

Maryville Academy's alternative for kids By PAUL M. GREEN

In the 1880s Chicago was a tough hardnosed boom town on the make. Since the Great Fire of 1871, thousands of immigrants had arrived in the Windy City, many possessing only a strong back and dreams of a better life for themselves and their families. Many made it; some did not. In the latter category, the children were particularly hard hit as their fathers' unemployment problems, bouts with alcoholism and sometimes early deaths eventually destroyed traditional home life.

Chicago Archbishop Patrick Feehan saw a real need for church action to help the kids. He opened Maryville Academy in Chicago's Bridgeport neighborhood near old St. Bridget's church as a combination home-and-school alternative for youngsters. A few years later, Feehan put together a corporation of businessmen and purchased a large tract of land in rural Des Plaines (a suburb in northwest Cook County). Feehan wanted to give inner city children, mainly Irish, an alternative lifestyle of both family and hope. Maryville moved to the suburbs.

Nearly a century later Maryville Academy is still headquartered in Des Plaines though it has expanded to include 11 other satellite campuses in Chicagoland. According to Rev. David F. Ryan, Maryville's assistant executive director, "the facility has always been on the cutting edge of urban social problems." Ryan, a shrewd and personable administrator, related proudly how the ethnicity of the kids at Maryville has changed with the region's demographics. "At first," he suggests, "Maryville was made up of mainly ethnics from Irish neighborhoods, while today most of the kids are African-American and Hispanic."

A visit to the main campus in Des Plaines is almost like walking into a Chicago Historical Society special exhibition. Fr. Ryan points with pride to a rare photo of a slim Babe Ruth hitting a few baseballs to the Maryville kids back in 1920 (Ruth had grown up in Maryville's sister institution, St. Mary's of Baltimore). "The problem back then," Ryan claims, "was the family and not the kids; more often than not in the old days, Maryville was a temporary cooling-off place for kids who were having problems at home. On weekends parents would come here for outings to visit their kids."

Then came the 1960s. Much changed in America during this turbulent decade, including Maryville. Its focus shifted from the family to the child. Post-1960 residents who came to Maryville often had severe behavioral problems, many were gang members, and most had little or no family support. In the last two decades other social ills have been added to the Maryville mix, like physically and sexually abused kids and, most recently, cocaine and crack babies. In spite of all the changes and added pressures Fr. Ryan says, "Maryville has never turned away a kid."

Here are some reasons for Maryville's success.

Reason 1. Fr. John Smith, Maryville's executive director and a former Notre Dame University basketball star, is a one-man political machine. He has cultivated strong friendships with powerful pols in both parties, such as Secy. of State George H. Ryan and especially his seminarian classmate, former Illinois Senate President Philip J. Rock. Smith also has many contacts among influential businessman, including some of Maryville's own alumni. Smith's fundraising abilities have allowed Maryville to expand while other social agencies have declined or even disappeared.

Reason 2. Though still labeled a Catholic institution, the archdiocese of Chicago gives almost no funding to Maryville. Under Smith and Ryan's efforts, lay workers have been recruited, a

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good many of them non-Catholics, to work and volunteer at Maryville. Only a few elderly nuns still serve as teachers at Maryville. Still, a quiet discipline of a religious institution oozes all through Maryville.

Reason 3. The Maryville approach works for those in need of its services. The Maryville Academy campus consists of small family-type homes, not giant institutional structures. The home I visited on the campus was typical. Nine youngsters lived in the home with a young married couple (both graduates of the Moody Bible Institute) who act as pseudo parents to the kids. The couple talked proudly about the youngsters and their accomplishments.

Reason 4. The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and other government funding agencies apparently recognize the cost/benefit factors of putting dollars into Maryville. This year 12,000 kids will be served by Maryville. Funding for Maryville's annual $26 million budget is split about 75 percent from grants for services from the Department of Children and Family Services and 25 percent from contributions. Those contributions come with the generous help of Maryville's very active alumni association. Maryville, by the way, does not recieve funds from the United Way fundraising effort.

Reason 5. Fr. Smith and Fr. Ryan, who are the only clergymen at Maryville, have been willing to take risks, be innovative and serve a need without a heavy bureaucratic administrative staff.

The Maryville model may be part of a new approach to social services in the 1990s. It was eye-opening to see the small residential units replicating a family environment. Also, Maryville's Des Plaines campus provides a spacious open environment. But the main strengths appear to be the social relationships between the kids and the adult leaders.

Maryville's future, like most social agencies, is unclear in this tough economic period. If leadership can make a difference, Fr. Ryan appears prepared, whether in need of divine or secular guidance. On his desk at all times are two books, the Bible and Machiavelli's The Prince. *

Paul M. Green is director of the Institute for Public Policy and Administration, Governors State University, University Park

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