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Hope and power merge with memory at Board of Child Care

By Melissa Lauber
UMConnection Staff

The letters that spell out her name are taller than she is. Sally Ransom Knecht notes this when she walks into the building that bears her name at the Board of Child Care in Randallstown: “The Sally Ransom Knecht Archive and Welcome Center.”

Her building delights her. It stands as a monument to decades of work that have given hope and possibility to thousands of area children and as a tool to shape the lives of countless children and their families today.

On the first floor of the building is meeting space and displays that highlight the outreach ministries of the board, which provide for the physical, emotional, behavioral and social needs of children, youth and families.

“Some of our children arrive with the clothes on their person and a paper bag with their belongings,” Ransom Knecht said. “Through caring, qualified staff, counseling, medical care, emotional support and guidance we can make a difference in their lives.”

On the second floor is an artistic timeline and other exhibits that tell the story of the Board of Child Care, which began 140 years ago as three Methodist orphanages. These merged into one agency in 1953.

Ransom Knecht made the timeline, sorting through the data and artifacts found in moldy boxes in a basement.

While she was working on the project, she broke both of her legs. She set herself up a space in the Great Room of her house and kept working.

“I didn’t want to stop working on it. It was like eating peanuts, but less fattening,” Ransom Knecht said. “The more I ate, the more I wanted. I never dreamed of the building we would have today, or that I would be so honored to have it named for me.”

The archival displays and the building were completed and dedicated in 2006. Ransom Knecht remembers the twin sisters – Hannah and Elizabeth – who spoke at the building’s dedication. The twins reflected on their childhoods, living in an abusive home where they and their siblings were “traumatized, neglected, sick and friendless.”

The Board of Child Care welcomed and cared for them. “Our lives were torn apart over and over again,” Elizabeth said. “But I’m glad to be alive and can’t wait for tomorrow because of the hope and promise it can bring.”

These words still strike at Ransom Knecht’s soul and make her ministry at the Board of Child Care, which began 25 years ago, something she can’t imagine living without.

“There is something in my heart that said this has to be done,” she said. “I felt I had the capacity, the education and the passion to do it. I wanted to leave a legacy. We all want to leave something in life.”

A member of Towson UMC, Ransom Knecht is proud that the board is a ministry of the Baltimore-Washington Conference – probably one of its best ministries, she said.

Each year, United Methodists support the children through a special Christmas offering. In recent years, Ransom Knecht said, this support to the multi-million-dollar board has dropped off. Last year, local churches contributed only $59,000. But several United Methodists did mentor the youth and provide opportunities for trips and other experiences.

The partnership between the two groups truly works both ways, Ransom Knecht said.

“The Board of Child Care gave the conference a loan to build its Mission Center in Fulton and each year provides $28,000 to send youth whose families have been affected by violence to camp at West River and Manidokan. The board is also starting a new grant program to provide funds for local churches working with children in need and on the Board of Child Care’s campuses in Randallstown and Falling Waters, W.Va. Chaplains provide religious services to the youth there.

“God is here,” she said.

But then, God has always been part of this ministry, and kids are still kids, she said, pointing to the board’s beginnings at the Kelso Home for Girls, Strawbridge Home for Boys and the Swartzel Home for Children.

In the past, the focus was on keeping children safe, allowing them to feel loved, and providing “three hots and a cot,” said Ransom Knecht.

Today we are for whole families. Children are no longer warehoused, we work to reunite them with their families. In the past, kids came for life, now the average stay is 10 months. The sense of excellence and professionalism is also extraordinarily high and its work is consistently hailed by leaders in the field as a model for nonprofit child service agencies nationwide.

In her building, Ransom Knecht prays for the children whose lives have been affected by abuse, violence, drug use and other dark things. She sees in each one their potential as a child of God. “My prayer is that they will have faith in life, in themselves and in God,” she said. “I pray that each one will strive to be the best possible person they can be, and I pray we will be there to provide them with what they need. I believe in the Board of Child Care motto: ‘Hope for the future. Power for the present.’ This is my joy.”