History
(Long Version)

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Nestled at the base of a ridge, along a creek in the hills of northwest Georgia, lies a unique positive living skills program for boys who share the misfortune of their previous environments that have sent them into life’s abyss of hollow and unwanted directions.

Mountain Top Boys Home began as one of the early community outreach projects of MUST Ministries, a faith-based organization in north Georgia dedicated to providing services to persons and families in crisis.  Two college room-mates, Wayne Williams and Rex Kaney, were the first directors of MUST.  In the mid nineteen seventies MUST ministries in Cobb County began working with at-risk youth who were either wards of the Cobb County Department of Family and Children Services or the Cobb County Juvenile Court system.  After many years of holding week long overnight camps at Lake Lanier and Lake Allatoona for these youth, the MUST staff, in consultation with the county, began to seek a way to have a greater impact on the lives of these young people.  MUST, with Rex as director, believed that the camps gave only enough time to begin to get to know the youth before they had to be sent right back into the difficult environments from which they had come.  They wanted to begin a residential program for teenagers as an alternative to detention.  They decided on working with young men because that was where the greatest need was.

After unsuccessful attempts to find a suitable location close to Marietta they discovered that the Atlanta-Marietta District of the United Methodist Church owned the Mountain Top property near LaFayette, Georgia.  The property was not being used as a camping facility as had been originally intended.  After presenting the idea of converting the facility to a boy’s home in a meeting of the Atlanta-Marietta District they received overwhelming support.  Thus the seed for Mountain Top Boy’s Home began to grow.

Today Reverend Dr. Rex Kaney is the Senior Minister of Druid Hills United Methodist Church, and Wayne L. Williams is currently Director of the Christian Counseling Center for the Atlanta-Marietta District and was the counselor to the Mountain Top staff and boys until 1999.

The facilities in 1980 included a four bedroom home that was originally built as a single family residence for the director for the first intended use for the property as a Methodist retreat.  The home had only a wood stove and window screens as air conditioning and remained that way until 2004.  The water still comes from a spring up the side of Chestnut Mountain.

This nearly five hundred acres of mountain property was first purchased and paid for through the leadership efforts of Dr. Candler Budd the great Methodist visionary.  It was deeded to the Atlanta-Marietta District with the intention that it was to be used as a camping and retreat facility.  Atlanta was a lot farther away back then, and even though a few other small structures and a well were built for that use, it was being used only sparingly when MUST entered the picture.

As a result of the decision to retask the facility, the home was converted to use as boys’ home that included modifications to the upper level bath and later the addition of a rest room and shower wing.  Though the home was not designed as a group home, it at times had as many as twelve boys in residence.

There have been many times that the source of funds to keep the doors open was a mystery.  In 1986 Lillian Darden, Dr. Budd’s daughter, came to the rescue through her friendship with Tom Murphey, Speaker of the House.  She convinced him that Mountain Top could keep boys in a better setting and cheaper than the state’s prison system.  From that time until the opening of our Dogwood Lodge in 2004, our boys were all wards of the Juvenile Justice system.  They were adjudicated to Mountain Top, a tranquil mountain setting with no fences and no locks.

The boys were not allowed into the public schools then so we employed a school teacher to assist their passing the G.E.D. exam.  The boys were all proud of that accomplishment, and they think of Mountain Top even today as though it were their high school.

The bad news is that the boys were being taught in a small room in shifts.  In 1998 funds were raised to build a school building that today is used for our offices on the upper level and a twenty-six bed bunk house with small kitchen on the lower level.   In 2000 a wood shop was built and opened to the boys, the equipment was updated, and an outstanding vocational education program was installed.  The school operated until 2004 when we began taking boys from the Department of Family and Children’s Services, which allows our boys now to attend public school.

The school was the first step in what was necessary to bring the boy’s home facilities to a higher level of service.  Upon completing the then needed school we then sought to replace the boys home itself with a building that was designed for the intended use as a boys’ home.  We began this effort the year that our board leader, Bill King, personally lent the operation capital to pay salaries and stay alive.  We knew that we had to do what was best for the boys with improvements in the facilities.  We moved on faith that we could raise the operating funds.  We had to do it every year then as we do now, having no endowment and as always insufficient funds from the State.

We erased the slate and began anew as though we had no experience.  We wanted to learn the best way to approach the needs of boys through a residential setting.  We conducted interviews and visits with other children’s home programs and their staffs across Georgia that revealed the loving couple family model.

This model creates a family atmosphere through a loving couple as house parents.  Each family home provides residence for eight children and their houseparent couple.  House parents are responsible for the daily care, nurturing, and teaching of life skills to the children in the family home.  The family units receive support from a management staff who give support in medical, psychological, and financial needs.  Most important is the house parent couple who, through their example, show the boys how healthy relationships can work.  These boys all come from dysfunctional or nonexistent family structures.  We want to imprint how love, discipline, and consistency can create a comfortable and effective atmosphere.  We have at Mountain Top the opportunity to mold these boys into better future fathers.

By eliminating the original caretaker approach, the loving couple model has proven to be infinitely more effective.  This model is also more expensive.  Coupled with the requirements now prescribed by the state, we have a challenge raising the necessary operating funds.  Our director now must have a masters degree with specific education requirements as do other members of the staff.  Constant staff training in conflict management, emergency medical, and other pertinent issues now occupies a larger portion of our budget.  .  All this is aimed at improving the experience and results for the boys.

The design of the home was important to accomplish this model.  Several of the most successful programs including Eagles Ranch had been using and tweaking this concept.  Folks in childcare all were helpful, and we were able to obtain plans of existing buildings which we visited.  We interviewed the staffs operating those homes and subsequently came up with what many consider a state of the art boys home, Dogwood Lodge.  This home includes a separate apartment for the house parents that is located directly off the great room for quick emergency access.  Yet, these quarters are also independent with a kitchen, privacy porch, two bedrooms and two baths.

When the house parents are off duty they must be able to escape to recharge their batteries.  After all having to be the “perfect” example to eight teen age sons with issues is energy absorbing.  A well trained relief staff comes in on a regular basis to give them a chance to catch their breath.

The pastoral mountain setting away from the challenges of in-town living gives the parents and staff the opportunity to be more effective in their life’s skills training.  Confusion through distractions on Chestnut Mountain is minimal.

Near the house parents’ access to the great room is the hallway to the boys’ bedroom wing.  This allows awareness and rapid access should issues arise.  Additionally, there are bedrooms for relief staff, a study hall, a grand porch, recreation room, extra large pantry, and enormous storage.

The current building has no debt.  The initial funds were provided by Peachtree Road United Methodist Church, and those funds were more than matched to start construction.  Labor and material were given freely through big hearts in the construction industry including our framing lumber, roof, gutters, windows, doors, flooring, paint, concrete, concrete forming, plumbing, and electrical as well as various types of labor and materials at prices ranging from significant reduction to free.

The lower level of the school building was turned into a bunk house that for two years lodged many week-end mission teams and nineteen week-long teams from over the entire U.S. that helped with the construction.  Mountain Top was alive with the passions of missioners and volunteers from Seattle, Denver, Kansas City, Dallas, upper Michigan, upper Kentucky, farm country of Ohio, and most of our southern neighbors.  They all felt the Lord’s spirit on the mountain.

Gifts to construct buildings are not so hard to find for us.  We have no debt, and we watch our bucks.  We are careful how we spend our money and people who know us, know that.  They are proud of their gifts.

Operating Capital, the day to day cost of doing our job is tough money to find.  We have no endowment.  We have to scramble every single year to find funds to supplement what the State pays us.  You have certainly heard the news -- times are tough.  The State is hitting us hard now; they require much more and pay less.  We need your help to do our job, just that simple.  While we need a lot and want big help, it is the twenty dollar per month crowd that give us our base.

If you understand what we do, you know we are effectively chipping away at great societal problems one boy at a time.  We always feel the Lord’s Spirit on the mountain and through results with these boys feel validated in our front line efforts.

You know we can do this only with your help.  There are few places you can give where you know that 100 per cent of your gifts go directly to the program.  If you’ll do what you can do best, give through your heart, we will continue to do what we do best -- make VALUABLE boys into PRICELESS men.

This page was last updated June 18, 2009.

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