For 70 years, Saint Francis Community Services has been helping youth and families - Salina Journal
15, 1983, David Campbell and his father were on their way to the Saint Francis Boys’ Home in Ellsworth, where the 17-year-old Wichita native had been a resident for nearly two years. At about 8:30 p. m. , while driving on a dark highway, Campbell’s father lost control of the car. “I blamed myself for the wreck because he was driving me back to Saint Francis,” said Campbell, now 49. Yet, he said, if it weren’t for staff, counselors and fellow residents of Saint Francis Boys’ Home, he doubted he could have mentally recovered... “I went through very tough times, and they helped me go through this without having my family there. Campbell said that, unlike about “90 percent” of the boys who were sent to Saint Francis’ Boys Home, he didn’t have a chip on his shoulder and wasn’t going to be labeled as someone from a “boys home. Making a choice in jail Campbell grew up in a poverty-stricken family and had some brushes with the law that landed him in juvenile detention at age 14. While in jail, he was given the chance to turn his life around by getting away from the cycle... He was given material on Saint Francis Boys’ Home, an institution founded in Ellsworth in 1945 by the Rev. At that time, Mize was troubled that teenage boys classified as “juvenile delinquents” — many from poor, broken or alcoholic homes — often were lost in an impersonal system of institutions, reformatories and prisons. Source: www.salina.com
