St. Cabrini Home
Encyclopedia
West Park
West Park can refer to:England* West Park, Hartlepool, County Durham* West Park, Darlington, County Durham* West Park, South Shields, County Durham* West Park, Lancashire* West Park, East Riding of Yorkshire* West Park, Leeds, West Yorkshire...
campus in Ulster County, New York, 7 group homes for both boys and girls, aged 12 – 21, in Dutchess and Orange
Orange County, New York
Orange County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. It is part of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown, NY Metropolitan Statistical Area and is located at the northern reaches of the New York metropolitan area. The county sits in the state's scenic Mid-Hudson Region of the Hudson Valley...
counties, and licensed outpatient substance abuse clinic.
Founding
At the behest of Pope Leo XIIIPope Leo XIII
Pope Leo XIII , born Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci to an Italian comital family, was the 256th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, reigning from 1878 to 1903...
, Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart
Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart
The Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart is a Roman Catholic order, founded on 25 March 1900 in Germany by a Dutch MSC, Fr. Hubert Linckens. It is a member of the Chevalier Family....
, traveled from Italy to New York City with seven of her Sisters to serve the burgeoning population of Italian emigrants to the United States. Within weeks of arriving in New York City, the Sisters were caring for a small group of orphaned or unsupervised young girls in a donated Fifth Avenue apartment.
Realizing that they needed a larger property, with land, to provide for the children, Cabrini purchased a property in West Park, Ulster County, New York from the Society of Jesuits
Society of Jesus
The Society of Jesus is a Catholic male religious order that follows the teachings of the Catholic Church. The members are called Jesuits, and are also known colloquially as "God's Army" and as "The Company," these being references to founder Ignatius of Loyola's military background and a...
to serve as an orphanage
Orphanage
An orphanage is a residential institution devoted to the care of orphans – children whose parents are deceased or otherwise unable or unwilling to care for them...
for Italian immigrant girls. The property included a monastery and working farm. Because the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart is a begging order, all properties purchased by the Sisters are and were funded through gifts and loans, and not the Catholic Church. Having run their well dry, and believing there to be no water on the grounds, the Jesuits sold the property at a fraction of its worth. Cabrini envisioned digging for a spring that would provide enough water for the fledgling orphanage; miraculously, the spring, found just up the hill to the west of the main road, provides water to the campus to this day.
Within weeks of opening the orphanage, the Sisters began accepting children from a variety of backgrounds from Poughkeepsie, Newburgh
Newburgh
-Places:Scotland*Newburgh, Fife, a former royal burgh*Newburgh, Aberdeenshire, a village*Newburgh, Borders, a village*Newburgh, Moray, a village*Newburgh, Orkney, a villageEngland*Newburgh, Lancashire, a village*Newburgh, North Yorkshire, a village...
, Kingston
Kingston, New York
Kingston is a city in and the county seat of Ulster County, New York, USA. It is north of New York City and south of Albany. It became New York's first capital in 1777, and was burned by the British Oct. 16, 1777, after the Battles of Saratoga...
, and other local communities. Archives of records from this time period are available for viewing by appointment in a museum room located at St. Cabrini Home’s campus.
St. Cabrini Home served as the novitiate
Novitiate
Novitiate, alt. noviciate, is the period of training and preparation that a novice monastic or member of a religious order undergoes prior to taking vows in order to discern whether they are called to the religious life....
and United States home base for the Mother Cabrini and her Sisters for decades. Upon her death in Chicago on December 22, 1917, Mother Cabrini was buried at her beloved West Park campus, as per her wishes. Her body remained entombed there until her exhumation in 1931, and was moved to the St. Frances Cabrini Shrine
St. Frances Cabrini Shrine
The St. Frances Cabrini Shrine, located in Washington Heights, northern Manhattan, New York, is adjacent to Mother Cabrini High School, which is at 701 Fort Washington Avenue. The shrine is dedicated to St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, who in 1946 became the first American citizen to be canonized by the...
in New York City in 1946 upon her canonization.
Expansion and community support
Mother Cabrini’s canonization brought new attention to the orphanage, attracting visitors from around the world. In 1959, the agency officially incorporated as St. Cabrini Home, Inc., which brought changes in governance. In 1968, the agency began accepting the infant brothers of girls already in care at the home. The campus program remained co-ed until 2004. St. Cabrini Home also expanded its programs to provide community-based living in group homes locally.Throughout these changes, and as Cabrini’s worldwide network of institutions grew, Cabrini and her Sisters relied on the support of the communities surrounding the orphanage. This support has included donations of food, supplies, and money; local families volunteering to host orphaned children for the holidays; and tickets, transportation, and food for outings for the children provided by local businessmen. Today, much of the work performed at the agency is performed by dedicated lay people, and community support remains critical to the legacy of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart.
Modern era
The original St. Cabrini orphanage currently serves as a residential treatment center for girls (having reverted to a single-sex facility in 2004). The agency additionally runs a residential program for girls in Ulster County, group homes for boys and girls in Dutchess and Orange Counties, and an outpatient substance abuse clinic that is licensed by the New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services.Financing state or federally-mandated services with limited and shrinking budgets remains challenging. Because St. Cabrini Home focuses on residential care, the organization was particularly vulnerable to 2005 changes in New York State foster care policies. In 2010, due to mounting public pressure, St. Cabrini Home replaced its administrative team and modified the types of youth it serves to ensure that the agency can provide sufficient and appropriate care to its clients.
Recent Controversies
On August 5, 2009, a young woman committed suicide by jumping in front of a truck on 9w. Both Benedictine Hospital and newspaper the Daily Freeman, along with several witnesses documented that the young woman was extremely depressed and expressed an urge to kill herself prior to the incident because the hospital had released her back to Cabrini, despite her wishes not to return. A former employee also notes that staff had been instructed to give the same story in response to a similar incident.On April 13, 2010, cottage supervisor Howard Wilson was arrested and faces felony charges of raping a 16-year-old female resident of the facility. As of January 2011, the case is still pending.
On April 19, 2011, Wilson pled guilty to felony rape chagres and will be sentenced on August 12 in Ulster County Court. The investigation revealed Wilson “would utilize his supervisory position to transport the victim away from the campus”.
On September 4, 2010, there was a rock and debris throwing incident which led to a NYS Trooper's patrol car being hit with a cinder block chunk. In addition to the alleged perpetrators, two Cabrini staffers and were also arrested on charges of acting in a manner injurious to a minor for, as police put it, "doing little or nothing to stop the girls during the roughly two hours that they threw rocks and other debris at cars zipping along the highway." Both highly regarded employees are expected to be cleared of all charges. St.Cabrini administration has backed both staffers completely.,