200 Mourn Slain Santa Rosa Girl Community calls for more attention to area's kids.
George Snyder, Chronicle Staff Writer. Saturday, October 25, 1997.

"SANTA ROSA -- With subdued sniffles and the periodic wiping of eyes, a diverse audience gathered yesterday at Santa Rosa's Community Baptist Church to give slain 12-year-old Georgia Moses the attention she never got in real life. ``This is Georgia's day,'' said the Rev. James Coffee during the noon services attended by about 200 people. ``This is probably one of the greatest days of her life . . . and she isn't here to share it with us.'' Those in attendance ranged from church and community members to the girl's family, the Sonoma County sheriff, an aide to Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey, D- Petaluma, and actor/singer Tom Waits, a west Sonoma County resident who sat quietly at the rear of the crowded church. Moses' body was found August 23 under a tree next to the on- ramp to Highway 101 on Petaluma Boulevard South. She had been missing since August 13, when she was last seen in the company of an unknown adult male near Dutton Avenue and Sebastopol Road in Santa Rosa. Several speakers alluded to the fact that the scant attention given the disappearance of the African American girl from a poverty- stricken and troubled family contrasted sharply with the worldwide attention given to Polly Klaas' abduction and murder in 1993 in Petaluma. In Moses' case, however, at least two weeks passed before police even learned of her disappearance, through an anonymous tip. ``Life wasn't fair to her,'' said Coffee, a religious leader in Santa Rosa's African American community. ``This was a 12-year-old child taken by the devil . . . a crime against children that has to stop. Many of us in the community who watched this child and her family are saddened and guilty because we wish we had done more for her.'' Kim Jackson, an aide to Woolsey, offered the congresswoman's condolences, saying her boss was ``profoundly troubled'' by Georgia's death. Sheriff's officials are offering a $5,000 reward leading to the arrest and conviction of the individual or individuals who killed her. Several of the slain girl's former friends and classmates broke down in tears after declaring their love for her. Other speakers, including community activist Mary Moore and Terry Hilton, a spokesman the Concerned Citizens For Southwest Area Youth, called for more attention to be given the area's poor kids. ``A lot of questions come up,'' said Hilton. ``Polly Klaas . . . Georgia . . . what's the difference? All I can hope for is that this terrible crime will bring the community together. Let's all do something in our way so that this doesn't happen again.'' Meanwhile, Sonoma County Sheriff Jim Piccinini told the assembly that ``I didn't know Georgia Moses. I don't know how it happened or by whom but as a community we care. Georgia was a child and we need to protect our children.'' ``Anyone,'' he pleaded, ``with any information, please come forward.'' Police are looking for an African American male, approximately 25 to 30 years old with closely cropped hair and medium complexion, for questioning in connection with the girl's death. They said man was driving a small, white, four-door vehicle." (Source: "200 Mourn Slain Santa Rosa Girl Community calls for more attention to area's kids" San Francisco Chronicle. By George Snyder. October 25, 1997. As published on SFGate.com)

Georgia Moses, the forgotten 12-year-old murder victim
October 1, 2003. By Lois Pearlman, Argus-Courier staff

"Cold was the night And hard was the ground They found her in a small grove of trees And lonesome was the place Where Georgia was found She's too young to be out On the street ... From "Georgia Lee," by Tom Waits. Georgia Lee Moses had a lot in common with Polly Klaas. She was abducted and murdered at the tender age of 12, like Polly, and her body was found on the west side of Petaluma, not far from Polly Klaas's house. Like Polly, Georgia was bright, beautiful, intelligent and well-loved by her circle of friends. But that's where the similarities end. While Polly Klaas was "America's child," Georgia Lee Moses was America's throw-away child, according to those who mourned her death in 1997 and the way it was treated by the community. While Polly's abduction and death was front-page news around the country, Georgia's tragedy was relegated to short news stories about the discovery of her body near the Petaluma Boulevard South entrance to Highway 101 and the unsuccessful search for her killer that followed. The difference between the death of Polly Klaas and the killing of Georgia Moses, say those who were critical of the lack of apparent sympathy for Georgia, is that Georgia was a poor black child of a single, mentally incapacitated mother. She was also a sometime runaway and a school truant, most likely attempting to escape from the sad conditions of her life. After her death, many people who rallied to her cause blamed school officials and Child Protective Services officials for letting her slip through the cracks. They also criticized the media for portraying her and her family in less than respectful terms, almost making it appear that she was the cause of her own death. "It was bad," said Marie DeSantis, who at that time was the director of Sonoma County Women Against Rape. "It wasn't until I went on KPFA (radio) and contrasted it to the response that people had to Polly Klaas's kidnapping that anybody paid attention. "The obvious thing was the race difference, but as much as that, any girl that is in trouble, whatever happens to her is considered her fault. Girls who are not raised in the right kind of home are (considered) responsible for what happens to them." But DeSantis said that once the inequitable treatment of Georgia Moses was made clear to the Sonoma County community, "everybody got the point. They did turn around eventually. That's the up side of this story." Still, she said it is a cautionary tale, which the community should never forget. "The race lines are drawn very hard in Sonoma County and they're really impenetrable, and people do not see them because they are very well camouflaged by liberal speak, and it's very cruel," she said." (Source: Petaluma Argus Courier: "Georgia Moses, the forgotten 12-year-old murder victim", October 1, 2003) - The Sebastopol Women's Justice Center established and maintains a memorial at the Petaluma site where 12 year-old Georgia Moses was murdered in August, 1997. The site reminds us that Georgia Moses' murder remains unsolved, and that sexism and racism kill (Source: Women's Justice Center official site).

Girl Child in the Promised Land

"The temptation to look away in Sonoma County is nearly irresistible. Gaze out any window and there is god's country; beckoning adventure, solitude, beauty, and the arts, as you wish. Turn to the people, and health and harmony is the fare. Woe the minority girl who has troubles or needs in Sonoma County! Who will even see her? And if by chance this girl comes into momentary view, bearing hurt and reminders of poverty and social ills, who is there for her who hasn't made a virtue of avoiding the stress? Can there be any doubt that it was repeated looking away that put 12 year old Georgia Moses on the streets in dangers' way? A looking away so reflexive that even when Georgia was found murdered on the side of the road, one local paper gave Georgia's murder a mere two paragraphs on page three, and another gave her a heaping dose of blame. There was at least one person who, following Georgia's murder, decided then and there that minority girls would be seen and heard, and loved and helped. Jeannie Walker, an African American counselor, gathered up the teenage African American girls in her area and opened her home. For the last three and a half years since Georgia's death, the girls meet regularly at Jeannie's home, to share, support, grow, and to have, as the group is named, A Time to Smile. Now Jeannie has teamed up with Latina counselor, Jennie Nestor, to provide the same for Latina girls." (Source: Women's Justice Center official site)

A Time to Smile (ATTS)

"When Georgia Moses, a young Black girl from a poor family, was murdered in the same county as Polly Klass (a 12 year old white girl whose murder drew national attention) the community barely took notice. Georgia took care of both her mentally ill mother and her 7 year old sister. She had been doing so since she was 7. She was a 12 year old woman and not by her own hand. She reached out to the community as a 12 year old with no boundaries and no rules and there was no one there to got to bat for her. Georgia sought her validation from men and was taken advantage of in the most horrific way. After the death of Georgia, A Time To Smile was born as a tribute to a child whose fate will not be forgotten. ATTS is a program for minority and underprivileged girls between the ages of 12 and 18. It was begun by Jeannie Walker, a single mother of three teen-agers who, after the death of Georgia Moses, was inspired to bring together a group of 12 girls from her neighborhood who she new were engaging in at-risk behaviors. Since then these girls have been meeting bi-weekly at her home where she offers them regular meals and, in an atmosphere of trust and safety, works with them on building self esteem and confronting the self defeating and dangerous behaviors that can arise from the effects of poverty, racism, neglect and abuse." (Source: NTA: Narrative Training Associates, 2004)

Purple Berets: "Stop Him Before He Kills Again"

On October 22, 1997, the badly decomposed body of 12 year-old Georgia Moses was found discarded off a Petaluma freeway on-ramp. Among the many Sonoma County agencies that had failed to act in the face of repeated indications that Georgia's family was in severe distress was the office of District Attorney Mike Mullins. Both in late April and early August, 1997, just weeks before Georgia's murder, Mullins had refused to file charges on new sex offenses against Eddie Pope, a convicted child molester who had moved in on Georgia's disabled mom. Friends say Georgia hated and feared Eddie, who is suspected my many to be the murderer and by others to be the reason Georgia was driven in the streets. (Source: Purple Berets: "Stop Him Before He Kills Again")

San Francisco Chronicle
SONOMA COUNTY
Children's Village closer to reality
Joe Montana's family boosts effort for foster kids
Jim Doyle, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, July 25, 2005

It was a simple, passionate idea: create nurturing, secure homes for abused, neglected, and abandoned children trapped in California's foster care system. The goal: to end the instability that many face when they are tossed from one family to the next.

But turning this inspired vision into the Children's Village of Sonoma County has taken nearly eight years of toil by the project's founder, Lia Rowley, and legions of volunteers, including ex-49ers quarterback Joe Montana, his wife, Jennifer, and their two teenage daughters.

Groundbreaking for the Children's Village, a cross between a group home and foster care, is planned this summer on a former dairy in southeast Santa Rosa. Eight foster family homes, six apartment units for seniors acting as surrogate grandparents and a common building will be constructed on the semirural site.

"We're going to try to keep it, as much as possible, noninstitutional," said Rowley. "It will really be a family-like setting. Hopefully, it will be a place where the children will foster a sense of belonging."

Rowley, who serves as the organization's executive director, has worked with children and their families for some 30 years, often as an adviser to Sonoma County's child protective services unit and as a behavioral consultant for families and treatment centers.

Although similar projects exist overseas and also in Florida and Illinois, the Children's Village is a first for California: the creation of family- style homes in a multigenerational environment for foster children and their siblings.

"How can you deny these kids the simple little things in life that we all take for granted on a day-to-day basis?" Montana says on the project's Web site, www.thechildrensvillage.com. "For me, that's what it's about, our kids."

Montana and his wife are honorary co-chairs of the project's fund-raising campaign. The Montanas live on a 500-acre estate in the Sonoma foothills.

Children's advocates welcome the project's innovative approach.

A child in foster care moves an average of nine times before he or she grows up, experts say, and about two-thirds of foster siblings in Sonoma County get separated.

The Children's Village is "critically necessary," said Tara Harvey, a deputy county counsel for Sonoma County. "We have a number of siblings groups that we do remove from their parents, and it's often hard to find a foster home that can take some of them, let alone all of them."

A chain of foster care facilities with similar goals to Rowley's independent project was started in Austria in 1949 with the opening of the SOS Children's Village, which spawned about 435 SOS villages worldwide -- mostly in less-developed countries. Two SOS villages were established in the 1990s in Florida and Illinois; a third was opened last year in Chicago. Hope Meadows, an independent children's village in Rantoul, Ill., hires elders as foster grandparents.

"I've been in situations where children have been through 30 placements. It's ridiculous," Rowley said. "These children can stay with us, we hope, for as long as they need to. It will be their home, their community."

One or two full-time, live-in foster parents will reside in six-bedroom, family-style homes with five or six children. Assistant parents will rotate among the homes, aided by seniors living in apartments.

Placement priority at the village will be for sibling groups of children. A trained staff and volunteers will assess the needs of each child as well as plan weekend and after-school activities, including counseling and tutoring.

Rowley founded the nonprofit Children's Village organization in 1999, two years after the slaying of Georgia Lee Moses, a 12-year-old Santa Rosa girl whose body was found in August 1997 near Highway 101 in Petaluma. Georgia lived in a poverty-stricken, troubled family and was last seen with an unidentified man. The case remains unsolved.

"I happened to have known Georgia, and because of her death, I was moved to do something about children in our society," Rowley said. She started meeting with people after she "saw some pretty horrendous things in my work and always wondered about something like a village for some of our children. .. . This one little girl's death won't be in vain."

Rowley and her administrative assistant are the only two paid staff members of Children's Village. But there are more than 80 volunteers including social workers, teachers, bankers and accountants who lend their skills.

Jennifer Montana approached Rowley last year and offered to help. Since then, the Montanas have done promotional work (he did a radio spot), appearances at fund-raising dinners, and auctioned autographed 49ers helmets.

The Montanas' eldest daughter, Alexandra, worked last summer as a Children's Village volunteer, helping with office work. Her younger sister, Elizabeth, raised funds for the village at the Human Race of Sonoma County, a popular charity event.

Donations from a foundation and an anonymous individual enabled Children's Village to purchase a site to build on. The 2.2-acre lot on Kawana Terrace Road is a parklike setting, with shade trees and a seasonal creek, across from a new suburb.

The village has staged dozens of fund-raising events including theatrical shows, garage sales, magic shows, dinners, raffles, silent auctions and a pro- am golf tournament. Tax-deductible donations have poured in from companies and individuals making monthly pledges or one-time gifts.

The organization has raised about $1 million in cash and in-kind donations, only $200,000 short of the amount needed to obtain a construction loan. Once ground is broken, Rowley plans to open the village 10 months later. An additional $500,000 is needed for startup costs, she said.

Phase I, designed by architect Tony Battaglia, will cost $3 million. It includes four family-style homes and three apartments for seniors. Construction of the entire project, including additional homes and apartments, along with a village center for administration and counseling services, will cost roughly $6 million.

"Miracles can happen," Rowley said. "It takes tremendous tenacity, but there's no way I could have done this without the support of all these people. ... I had to learn from scratch."

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How to help
Donations to the Children's Village Project may be sent to 327-A College Ave., Santa Rosa, CA 95401, or via phone at (707) 566-7044. For more information on the project, go online to www.thechildrensvillage.com.

E-mail Jim Doyle at jdoyle@sfchronicle.com.