In villages blessed with astounding nonprofit leaders, most of them women, Mary Anne Brown stood out. We mourn her death this week.
For 40-plus years Brown built and led Hephzibah Children’s Association, an agency fully focused on kids. She was hired there in the mid-1970s. Hephzibah, almost 80 years old at that point, was shrinking. With a budget of only $100,000 and a single after-school daycare program as its offering, Brown started building.
When she retired in 2017, Hephzibah had a budget of $9 million and had a full boat of services it provided. In addition to the vastly expanded child care it offered, largely in partnership with District 97, Hephzibah had taken on a failed local Head Start program.
At its core, though, was the group home it ran on North Boulevard, which was home to 26 children from across the state who were among the most grievous victims of abuse and abandonment in Illinois. Hephzibah piled on services and small touches of a home to help these kids heal and, with hope, move forward.
Under Brown, Hephzibah also added a strong foster care and adoption program that helped place many children, a good number of them with Oak Park families.
Mary Anne Brown was a force. You don’t garner that many state grants and such generous support from corporate Chicago without putting yourself and your organization forward. She was also a hands-on nurturer of small people who needed to be loved, seen and connected.
She will long be remembered for the institution she built and the people she touched.