Bethesda breaks ground on facility for innovative new program

By Mike Crowley

MEADVILLE TRIBUNE

WOODCOCK TOWNSHIP — Officials at nonprofits that care for children facing some of the most challenging circumstances imaginable don’t get to break out the golden shovels every day.

When a donor provides $400,000 to fund a project that had seemed like a dream, however, it’s definitely golden shovel time.

For Bethesda Lutheran Services, golden shovel time came Tuesday, when six of the implements could be seen sticking up in a grassy area along Morris Road near its intersection with Route 86. There, Bethesda CEO George Trauner See BETHESDA, Page A6

Officials prepare to break ground Tuesday for Bethesda Lutheran Services’ new Petersen House, which will provide a family-like setting for up to six children too young to be served currently by Bethesda’s residential services. Participants were (from left) Crawford County Commissioner Christopher Soff, Meadville-Western Crawford County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Christa Lundy, Bethesda Foundation board member Dan Burek, Bethesda Lutheran Services CEO George Trauner, Bethesda Foundation board President Greg Furer and Bethesda Foundation board member Rachelle Fritz.

MIKE CROWLEY/Meadville Tribune

Continued from Page A1 welcomed officials to the groundbreaking for Petersen House, which will provide a family-like residential setting for up to six children between 5 and 11 years old — an age range for which Bethesda has not previously been able to provide residential services.

Construction on Petersen House is expected to begin within the next month, Trauner told the crowd, with a dedication of the facility at Bethesda’s annual reunion in August. The construction is being funded by a donation from the John M. and Gertrude E. Petersen Foundation.

“A program like this is nowhere else in the state,” Trauner said.

The planned house is innovative in several respects, according to Trauner, including the age range it will serve, the family- like environment and the plan to hire “house parents” to care for children who, for a variety of reasons, cannot be successfully placed with traditional foster parents.

“We want to make sure they have a stable environment,” Trauner said. “We see a population of youth in our county that have mental health and trauma-related issues that truly need to be dealt with in a family-like setting, and we want to make sure the foster parents have all the supports to give them that.”

Bethesda plans to hire a couple to live in the home with the children and serve as foster parents. The size of the planned structure would even allow families with one or two children of their own to be considered, since there would be room for both the family’s children and the foster children, Trauner said.

The inspiration for the home came from seeing children 11 years old and younger placed among older children in Bethesda’s more traditional residential units when they couldn’t be placed with foster families.

“That’s not the best setting for these little guys,” he told the crowd. “What broke my heart was when you would see the staff walking up the sidewalk holding their hands and putting them on the vans to go to one of our local elementary schools.”

Mike Crowley can be reached at 7246370 or by email at mcrowley@meadvilletribune. com.