Rowdy kid now a Marine, thanks to St. Joseph's Villa, Fresh from boot camp, he stops by the facility to thank his caregivers
Michael Saunders was 11 when he first showed up at St. Joseph's Villa for Children. Over the years, the rough-edged kid would throw chairs and punches at the people trying to help him.
BY BILL LOHMANN
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Aug 18, 2006
He showed up at the Villa again this week, the edges dramatically smoothed. He greeted women he didn't know with "Good morning, ma'am" instead of spitting curses. Introduced to strangers, he shook hands firmly and said his name proudly. He was clean-cut and polished in his Marine uniform, a young man of 19 with a wife, an infant son and a bright future.
He was as glad to be back as the Villa was to see him.
"The Villa is my comfort zone," Saunders said. "It's taken care of me. The Villa is my home."
"It's an incredible story," said Craig Hedley, director of community partnerships at the Villa and a longtime mentor and friend of Saunders.
But it's the type of story those who work at the Villa -- which provides a variety of services to Richmond-area children and families -- hear too seldom.
In Saunders, Hedley and the rest of the Villa staff were able to stare squarely in the face of success. Three dozen of them showed up to greet Saunders and then eat lunch with him. When Hedley asked how many had worked with Saunders, almost all raised their hands.
"The Villa handled me, and I was hard to handle," Saunders told the gathering. "I just want to say thank you."
The only consistent aspect of Saunders' childhood was its inconsistency. He had been in and out of the Villa's emergency shelter by the time his mother died when he was 13. As the only child of a single-parent household, he made most of the funeral arrangements.
In the next few years, he lived in foster homes, group homes, even residential treatment facilities. The one constant was the Villa. Whenever he needed shelter -- which turned out to be fairly often -- he knew he could turn to the Villa.
"I wasn't an angel," Saunders said. "I was a pistol. I was a bad kid. But the Villa always had a place for me. They never turned me away."
For a kid emerging from such a muddled past, he sure had a clear vision for himself.
"Some kids want to be a doctor, some kids want to be a lawyer," he said. "I wanted to be a United States Marine."
Saunders kept bugging the Marines; they kept telling him to get his high school diploma, which he did this year. He shipped out to Parris Island, S.C., in May. He graduated from boot camp last week.
Hedley made the eight-hour drive to South Carolina to see Saunders walk across the stage. After the ceremony when the new Marines were officially dismissed, most ran directly to their families. Saunders ran straight for Hedley, who had encouraged Saunders about the Marines but also expressed skepticism along the way.
Beaming, Saunders said, "I told you so!"