Every non-profit tries to do one, every funder wants to see

one—but what are they supposed to DO? Most annual reports line up the usual suspects, as have we: letters from and job responsibilities of key people, financials, what’s gone on in the year, how the kids we serve are doing. But it’s also to mark the TIME: its use, its value, its passing. This year, our 125th, has been quite a year. That’s a long time.

Almost a decade ago we all crossed a millennium.

We thought at the time it might shut down all our phones or computers and empty the banks, and when that didn’t happen, we sighed “oh well” and went on. But a thousand years ago when we faced the First Millennium, everybody thought they were going to die! And when THAT didn’t happen, it took them a decade, or maybe a century, and then they WOKE UP. Hey, we’re going to be around awhile, let’s do something worthwhile. So they started building Cathedrals. The ones we finished over centuries are breathtaking, the space hushes you, you stand in awe, mouth agape, dazzled by the glass and mosaics. Some aren’t finished yet.

It’s our turn to start looking long-term.

Our millennial task this time may be something more internal than external, something relational more than architectural. Will you start with us this year to build a temple of justice, a cathedral of compassion for these children? What’s to keep us from ending violence against and abuse of children—do we need a trillion of government money, or can we find our own ways? We know better every year how to heal a child’s brain, mind and soul—let’s start working at preventing abuse and severe neglect before it even happens. It will mean engaging judges and politicians, cops and corrections, foster parents and immature adolescents, teachers and doctors, neighbors and grandparents—heck, we’ll even let celebrities help! We will need governments, and businesses, public, private and non-profit sectors, we will need to intervene earlier and better, work with a child until they are well; not just more under control, but healed. It’s about Time!

The kids here at Mount Saint Vincent Home

experience time differently. A child who’s been abused or neglected is often triggered, in a state of alarm, used to and more comfortable with chaos than self-regulation. They don’t have much of a future—I don’t mean they can’t get well and flourish, they can—I mean they don’t look very far ahead in time, because they are on alert NOW. When you feel under threat, you don’t look ahead, except for a place to run or hide. When you feel safety, life slows down. As they heal, we help them accept the force of their experience while taking away its terror. They can look further and further ahead into their futures. It’s exciting, seeing and hearing it happen. They start to consider time after this Home back to their family home or a foster home, they think about high school, maybe college, my career, my Life!

Thank you for visiting our Annual Report,

for caring for children, for building with us a cathedral of compassion. It’s time. So we begin.

Dennis Kennedy,
Director of Communications