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Michael H. Danjczek, executive director and president of the Children's Home of Easton, and Arthur J. Rothkopf, president of Lafayette College, have announced that the Children's Home and the College are collaborating to establish a professional foster home adjacent to the Lafayette campus.
Lafayette will lease a house it owns at 426 Clinton Terrace – known as the Wise House — to the Children's Home, which plans to renovate it. Danjczek said the new facility will be a home for “kids who work exceptionally hard to achieve good things and go above and beyond in a variety of ways.” It will also house Children's Home staff members.
This is the second time the Children's Home and Lafayette have joined forces to open a facility near the College's campus. Since 1997 the Children's Home has operated a home near Lafayette for students who excel academically. Called “Academy House,” it is the home of three students, all of whom attend Northampton Community College, and a staff member.
“I am pleased that Lafayette College can once again help the Children's Home of Easton fulfill its important mission. For more than a century, our institutions have shared a deep commitment to the well-being of young people and to our community,” Rothkopf said. “Our previous joint effort, Academy House, has been a quiet but very noteworthy success.
“I'm also pleased that such a worthwhile use has been found for the Wise House, a wonderful property which Lafayette is unable to use for College-related purposes due to zoning restrictions,” Rothkopf continued.
Rothkopf and Danjczek also pointed to other significant recent collaborations between Lafayette and The Children's Home.
In the fall of 1994, Rothkopf's wife, Barbara, joined with Danjczek to launch the ProKids Alliance to foster collaboration among Lehigh Valley agencies that help children. Barbara Rothkopf was adminstrator of Woodley House Programs, a non-profit mental health agency in Washington, D.C., before coming to the Lehigh Valley.
In the summer of 1995, Lafayette provided housing for 12 children in the College's Delta Delta Delta sorority house after the Acopian Center dormitory at the Children's Home burned in June of that year.
The Children's Home of Easton has both therapeutic home and community-based programs. Its main campus serves as home to as many as 74 young people, ages 10 to 18, with an additional capacity for over 80 children off campus in satellite foster care and group homes.
Since its founding in 1885, the private, non-profit agency has provided supervision, care, counseling, and love to thousands of troubled youths from dysfunctional families. Its individually designed programs are able to give children as much freedom as they can handle and as much guidance as they need, helping them return to the community as responsible citizens.