The Junior League of Miami (JLM) has been involved in children's issues and programs since its inception, beginning with a child guidance clinic under the direction of Dr. Tom Williams in 1926. The following year the League began its holiday toy drive, a tradition maintained today. In 1929, a children's theater project was implemented. Junior Leaguers donned costumes, created the sets and staged performances of Snow White, The Wizard of Oz and Jack and the Beanstalk. This highly successful, long-running program was turned over to the community in 1947-48.
The first major social project undertaken by the JLM began in the wake of the 1926 hurricane and the beginning of the Great Depression. In 1931, the Children's Home Society of Florida was forced to close its southeastern branch. The League was approached by the Children's Home Society founder to assume full responsibility for the home. Under the courageous leadership of League President Kay Pancoast, the decision was made to undertake this ambitious and challenging project.
On January 1, 1931, JLM took ownership of the Children's Home Society's receiving home and changed the name to the Junior League Children's Home. Anne Farley Bellenger was the first chairperson of this project which cared for 90 children in its first year.
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n 1936, the Junior League returned the home to the Children's Home Society and looked to broaden its scope of work in this area. The League then founded the Children's Service Bureau of Dade County, Inc. in 1936-37, which assisted in foster placement for children.
Martha Lummus, president of the Junior League in 1935-36, remembers when Dr. Carstens, then head of the Welfare League of America, came to Miami to conduct a survey to identify the most needed project for the League to support. He recommended the formation of the Children's Service Bureau.
"The bo
ard agreed to that as a project, and the wheels began turning to create it," Martha tells us. Turning indeed! The League has been involved with the Children's Home Society and other children's agencies ever since.
In fact, during the early Operation Pedro Pan, this League project, in connection with the Catholic Children's Service assisted in finding foster homes for the many Cuban children whose parents, fearing the Communist regime in Cuba, sent their children to Miami.
A variety of projects have continued ever since, like Teenage Shelter Care (TASC) in 1991-93, in which Leaguers mentored troubled teens.
Children and the Arts
During the late 1930s the League broadened the scope of the Children's Theater Project by conducting a survey of the arts available for children, and adding a weekly Children's Dramatic Reading on WIOD radio. In addition, the Children's Service Bureau became a Community Chest Agency (now The United Way) and a Family Service Bureau was formed.
During the war years of the 1940s, the League's efforts, like those of the rest of the community, were turned to War Relief. Past President Evelyn Rutledge remembers how the League couldn't do their League projects and help with the war effort. For the first time, the League paid for outside help at the Thrift Shop.
However, as soon as the war ended, children's programs re-emerged as the League's focus area with the establishment of a Children's Music and Story Program and a Radio Program for children. These program soon encompassed all of the elementary schools in the county. Historian Arva Moore Parks remembers winning a prize for reading the most books which she was in school. In 1947 all these children's programs were officially recognized when the JLM was appointed to League to the Florida Children's Commission. These early programs in the arts "paved the way for Art Path" and other programs of the JLM in more recent history, Arva explained.
In 1949-50, the JLM established the Junior Museum, which was to become the Museum of Science and Natural History in 1959, and is known today as the Miami Museum of Science and Space Transit Planetarium.
Betty Purvis, president that year, remembered the League holding their board meetings in the upstairs portion of the house in which the first museum was located. Marie Louise "Babe" Dowlen remembered during her presidency a few years later the JLM started the Museum of Science Guild, which still provides major volunteer support to the Museum.
Countless volunteers worked on the museum committee for many years, nurturing it in its foundling years. It now hosts more than 300,000 visitors a year. The League's work on this effort brought it first prize in The Miami Herald's "Club of the Year Contest" in 1956-57.
During that same year, the League branched into television with the production of "Operation Junior" a children's show on Channel 2.
The 1960s brought continued involvement in the Museum of Science and Natural History, as well as other children's programs and issues. The League purchased "Williamsburg: Story of A Patriot" for Dade County Schools, made a $5,000 donation to help establish the Children's Society Service Bureau's Esquire House and started a "Youth Volunteer Program" as part of an ongoing volunteer program.
In the 1980s the League strived to broaden the horizons of children with Art Path programs. These programs provided valuable museum experiences for Dade County elementary school students and encouraged them to view works of art for self-enrichment.
Betty Fleming, Junior League sustainer, spent several of her active placement years working with this program and recalled the many tours the League conducted for children at the Center for the Fine Arts, now called the Miami Art Museum.
"We took thousands of children through the museum," Betty said, "It was a tremendous program and we were sad to see it end."
In addition, the League funded and provided volunteers for the Miami City Ballet's "Ballet for Children" program, and assisted the Inner-City Children's Touring Dance Company, under the direction of Florene Nichols, for three years, 1989-92. Provisionals and other Leaguers helped staff Kaleidescope, a traveling arts and craft facility for children when it came to Miami in 1988-89.
Drug Awareness for Children
As drugs became a problem with youth in our community and throughout the nation, the League produced a film "Drugs Are Like That." This award-winning film circulated through school systems both locally and nationally well into the 1970s. It educated tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of children on the dangers of drug use.
In the 1980s, drug education continued with programs such as GATE and Informed Families, which has grown into a strong drug education organization.
Advocacy for Children
Child advocacy was a strong focus of the League during the 1970s. In 1973 the League became involved in a court advocate program called "Court Watch" which has lead us through the years to new programs for children (including Kristi House, a current League program).
Berta Blecke, one of the League's most outstanding advocates for children, was a part of this program and became friends with the Honorable William Gladstone, the Chief Judge for the Juvenile Court System. He helped the League implement a project called Children in Placement. Through this project it became clear that children needed to have a guardian appointed to them to ensure that their cases would not get lost in the court system.
With this in mind, in1980 the Guardian Ad Litem Project was born and continues today. During this same time the League was a co-sponsor for the Parent Resource Center which is still providing parenting skills education in our community as the Family Resource Center. In addition to Guardian Ad Litem, the League co-sponsored a seminar on violence in the schools, instituted an "Ambassadors for Public Education" program and continued to become more and more involved in many areas of child advocacy. During the mid-1980s, the League was instrumental in getting school-based health clinics started. (Today we are implementing the pilot program for Hepatitis B immunization in a middle school.)
The late 1980s and on into the 1990s found League members designing a volunteer program for the McLamore Children's Center, a temporary shelter for abused, abandoned and neglected children. In addition, child care issues were addressed by establishing a day care center in the Modello Housing Project, in South Dade. We also became involved with issues for disabled youth by supporting the Junior Orange Bowl's Sports Ability Games.
In 1985 the Kathryn Menke Miller Award was established in honor of one of our members killed tragically, a victim of violent crime. This award is presented to a young woman graduating from each public high school in Dade County who demonstrates dedication to voluntarism just as Mrs. Miller did.
Other children's projects of the 1990s have included Dade Public Education Impact II, ResourceMobile and Kids Voting. All share the same characteristics: innovative, educational and child-focused.
The JLM's history with children's programs and issues is varied and rich. It has been an integral part of who and what the League stands for since its beginning to the present. Throughout our history the League has offered solutions to the problems affecting our most precious resource: our children.
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