As much as Lost Voices has grown to reach new populations of youth over the past 15 years, there are still a whole lot of kids out there that we’ve never been able to help. That’s why it is so exciting to build a new partnership, like we have this year with the Methodist Children’s Home Society, or MCHS. With an initial program funded by a generous donation from Lost Voice supporters George and John Shea, we were able to work with the boys in this wonderful facility for the first time.
Carolyn Watson, the Chief Advancement Officer at MCHS had good things to say about our time with the boys:
MCHS is grateful for the time and energy Lost Voices spent with our children. The creative outlet our youth received from the program is immeasurable and an experience that will stay with them for life. Thank you to Lost Voices and the amazing musicians who took the time to make a difference in the lives of our children!
Speaking for the whole Lost Voices team, I’ll say that we are just as grateful to be working with MCHS and the young men in their care.
Originally called “Methodist Child Care,” Methodist Children’s Home Society (or MCHS) came into existence in 1917. The driving force was a woman named Anna Kresge, the wife of Sebastian Kresge, owner of the then up-and-coming S.S. Kresge stores. Ironically, considering our current situation, Mrs. Kresge was responding to the large number of children in the Detroit area who had lost their parents to the great Influenza pandemic.
Their first facility was a small house in Highland Park, where they took care of ten children. In 1922, they built a larger home on a farm in what is now downtown Farmington, and in 1926, the agency’s name was officially changed to Methodist Children’s Home Society. In 1927, supported by the Kresges and other prominent Detroiters like the Webber, Hudson, and Edsel Ford families, they purchased twenty-eight acres of land and built the Methodist Children’s Home Society’s “Children’s Village” in Redford.
Today the Children’s Village is an all-boy campus covering eighty acres. The boys live in tudor-style cottages in an idyllic setting along the Rouge River. The rolling campus includes a chapel and a fully-equipped elementary school. Everything about the serene setting promotes an atmosphere of healing.
In early September Samantha Cooper, Matt Watroba, Josh White, Jr., and I spent a week at MCHS with a group of very exceptional young men. The guys were a little bit rowdy now and then, which is exactly what you should expect from a bunch of teenage boys. And they were wonderful. As you probably know by now, we work with the kids to write individual songs and a collaborative group song. The individual songs were great, covering topics ranging from feeling depressed, to COVID-19, to Elvis Presley. The group song they wrote is one of the more exceptional ones we’ve had:
Black Cat Baby Blues
12 bar blues in G
Well, I’m a black cat baby
Get meow’da here
Yeah, I’m a black cat baby
Get meow’da here
People say I’m unlucky
Just like a broken mirror
Oh, the whispering trees
They’re being mean to me
Yeah, those whispering trees
They’re being mean to me
When I climb up on ‘em
They throw me down on my knees
Well, don’t give me no people
Horses raccoons or cows
They call me unlucky,
Are you kitten me right meow?
Oh, I’m a black cat baby
Get meow’da here
People say I’m unlucky
Just like a broken mirror
Meow Solo
Well I’m a black cat baby
Get meow’da here
Yeah, I’m a black cat baby
Get meow’da here
People say I’m unlucky
Just like a broken mirror
When they performed Black Cat Baby Blues in their concert, the boys gave it everything they had, and the audience howled with laughter. As genuinely funny as this song is, though, the underlying sadness of feeling like an unlucky misfit is unmistakable. It’s always great to see the honest expression of emotion from the kids, even when their way of articulating their feelings gets kind of goofy.
So please join us in saying a warm Lost Voices Welcome to the Methodist Children’s Home Society. Here’s to a long and healing relationship!
