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Hi, I’m Tonia Caruso. Welcome to Comcast Newsmakers. Serving children in our communities
since 1832, joining us in our studios this half hour is John Culbertson. He is the chairman
of the board of Pressley Ridge. Thank you so much for coming in and talking with us
today.
Thank you for having me here.
Such an important organization and so rich in history.
Yes, indeed! Pressley Ridge has been around since 1832; a long time in Pittsburgh history.
We arrived on the scene when Andrew Carnegie was a boy and I just learned 4 years before
the battle of the Alamo. So, we go back a long time.
And when you put it in that perspective, it is so long ago and really you began one way
and Pressley Ridge has sort of evolved.
That is correct. We started as an orphanage because Pittsburgh at that time was a river
town, not the industrial giant that grew, but a river town. And they had a huge problem
with orphanages and the orphan problem was generally solved by the faith based community
and Pressley Ridge comes from two orphanages that started about that time.
And so, when we think about Pressley Ridge today, what do you explain to folks and say
to folks about the mission and what you all do?
What we do is serve troubled youth and what we trying to do is take care of kids who have
issues as we say today. All kinds; emotional, physical and we do it on several different
levels. One, we educate them, we have schools where kids go every day just as normal children
do. And then we also do residential care, where they are there 24/7 for a period of
time, usually, sometimes as much as a year. And then, we do TFC, it’s called Treatment
Foster Care, where it’s a foster care situation where the child is in a normal home, staying
with foster parents whom we have trained. And then the other venue, the other avenue
of service is a newer avenue of service for us is taking care of Autistic, excuse me,
Autistic children.
So, the spectrum continues to grow?
Indeed.
And we were talking earlier, everything that you do is individualized for each child.
That’s very true. Most people think of it in terms, if you’re a civilian I’d said,
you think of it in terms of the teacher student ratio and ours is incredibly high. The number
of staff focused on one kid is a high number in all of the venues in which we serve children.
And where do think these young people would be if it were not for Pressley Ridge?
We’ve done studies and there are studies out there and they lead to a lot of different
conclusions, all of them, the outcomes, all of them show bad outcomes, but prison is one
of the outcomes from this. And we can show that the success ratio by many measures of
our children, our kids, after they leave us, their success in life and we’ve been doing
this for a long time is demonstrably better than most other venue.
And that is so fantastic and to that end, you’re constantly working to raise money.
You have a fun event and a big fundraiser coming up and let’s talk about this, it’s
all about ice cream.
Indeed it is and I’m so glad you mentioned it. On August 27th, which is a Saturday. It
is the weekend before Labor Day weekend. Not Labor Day weekend, the weekend before that.
We throw a party and we’ve done this several years at the Highland Park Zoo.
The Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium.
The Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium, thank you very much.
It’s Ice Cream Fundae.
Ice Cream Fundae. And pay at the door or buy a ticket in advance at our website. Come on
down and once you walk in with your ticket, you will get all the ice cream you want for
free with your children. So, you get free ice cream, free walk around and see the animals;
you can’t beat it.
And a great event for families. We thank you so much for coming and talking with us today.
We certainly do appreciate it.
My pleasure.
Thank you. I’m Tonia Caruso. Thanks for watching Comcast Newsmakers, we’ll send
you back now to HLN.