The Home Holds Groundbreaking at Longview Farm
Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Celebrating The Third Century Campaign

The Home for Little Wanderers held a Groundbreaking Ceremony at its Longview Farm Campus in Walpole, Massachusetts on Monday, October 31, 2011 in celebration of its Third Century Campaign. The ceremonial event was attended by more than 75 people including elected officials, representatives from The Home’s Board of Directors, employees, alumni, volunteers and major contributors who have demonstrated a strong commitment to creating a vastly improved environment where some of The Home’s most vulnerable children can live, learn, and heal. One of the groups in attendance was the Yawkey Foundation whose generous support has contributed $2 million to the project.

“The Home is committed to investing in the futures of children, as well as the future of the organization,” said Joan Wallace-Benjamin, President and CEO, The Home for Little Wanderers. “We’ve embarked on an unprecedented capital campaign to raise $23 million to fund the construction of a state-of-the-art special education school and new residences at our Longview Farm program site here in Walpole.”

In August 2011, The Home announced plans to relocate children from its oldest and most well-known program, The Knight Children’s Center (KCC), in Jamaica Plain to the existing 166-acre Longview Farm site where it has provided services since 1940. The Home’s goal is to provide students who require more intensive behavioral and academic support with the kind of enhanced education that any child attending the best public school in Massachusetts would expect to receive.

The Longview Farm project is expected to be completed by late 2012 or early 2013 and includes the construction of a new state-of-the-art special education school and four new residences. When complete, the facility will:

• Provide a far superior and healthier environment for the children currently being served at KCC. The 166-acres of outdoor space provides an opportunity for youth to participate in valuable activities such as an agricultural program, gymnasium, playing fields, Project Adventure ropes course, fishing and ice-skating pond, hiking and nature trails.
  
• Enhance educational and vocational outcomes for youth through a career and technical educational program that provides a range of options for training and employment.
  
• Maximize use of Longview Farm, only a small portion of which is currently being utilized.
  
• Enable The Home to provide additional services to more children in the Commonwealth through a consolidated and more cost-effective program by housing a year-round residential and day school treatment program for up to 80 boys and girls aged 5 to 18 with a wide range of emotional, behavioral, educational and psychiatric needs.

“Our services are increasing in new ways as child welfare trends away from residential programming,” explains Wallace-Benjamin. “It is important to realize that The Home for Little Wanderers is not leaving the Boston area and intends to remain a preeminent organization in the city and throughout Eastern Massachusetts for generations to come. This is an exciting time for us. Every child who comes into our care deserves a chance at becoming a healthy and productive member of our society. The Third Century Campaign will help make this vision a reality.”