Putting Children First

Photograph by Michael Ventura

The Washington charity For Love of Children traces its roots to the 1965 March on Selma led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. One participant, the Rev. Gordon Cosby, a Washington minister, was inspired by Mr. King’s vision of a socially just world, and returned to the city determined to improve conditions for its poorest children.

Mr. Cosby and a group of volunteers decided to focus on the children living at the city-operated Junior Village home, an overcrowded institution where as many as four to six youngsters slept in a bunk.

In June 1966, For Love of Children hired its first paid executive director, Fred Taylor, who led the charity until his retirement last month. His successor, Mustafa Abdul-Salaam, took office this month.

Today, For Love of Children serves 1,000 children in a variety of ways. It operates a group home for teenage mothers, and another for teenage boys who are wards of the court. It also runs a school for children with emotional or academic difficulties. Its “Hope and a Home” program helps homeless families find low-cost housing and assists parents in developing their vocational, academic, financial-management, and child-rearing skills.

About $7-million of the charity’s $8.8-million annual operating budget comes from contracts with government agencies; the rest comes from private sources.

While many of the charity’s programs assist children in crisis, others aim to prevent trouble before it occurs.

One such effort is the Neighborhood Tutoring Program. The program, which helps students master basic reading and math skills, began in 1995 with six tutors and six children, and grew rapidly, serving 547 students this year.

Standardized test results show that participants improve close to two grade levels in reading and math for every 40 hours they spend in the program.

Here, Michael O’Neill, an engineer who volunteers with the charity, helps Tiara Day, 8, practice long vowel sounds.