The Mission of Marygrove is to provide quality mental health services to severely disturbed children, young adults and their families who are economically disadvantaged.

With over 170 years of history, Marygrove has created and implemented a variety of programs – focused on providing a safe and nurturing environment where these children and young adults can heal and thrive. They do this through a family-like setting with professional caregivers, including licensed, Masters-level therapists, who create individualized programs.

Marygrove is one of the largest therapeutic residential treatment programs in Missouri and is a new beginning for the 200 children and young adults served each day.

Today, through its broad spectrum of residential and community-based programming, including therapeutic residential treatment and foster care, transitional and independent living programs, crisis care, education and recreational therapy, family counseling, parenting education and mentoring Marygrove enriches the lives of over 1,000 young people each year.

Last year, we initiated our first pro bono search effort. We engaged our clients to ask for nominations of local nonprofit agencies they hold near and dear to their hearts. There were no other qualifications – simply a valid 501 c3 organization. We received several nominations and then wrote each agency name down on a slip of paper, put them in a bowl, and drew one at one of our team meetings. The winner was Marygrove, nominated by Michelle Roosa with Alter Trading.

We notified Marygrove – contacting Joe Bestgen, their Chief Executive Officer. To say they were surprised is an understatement. Once they had processed the information, they could not believe the timing! Marygrove had been searching for a Chief Development Officer on their own for some time and had not been successful. As is the case with most nonprofit agencies, Marygrove lacked the time and resources to truly recruit candidates and had relied on posting the position and hoping for the right candidate to apply. Of course, this can prove fruitful, but often times, it can’t be accomplished in the timeframe necessary.

We quickly learned what was important to Joe and set off on the challenge. We sourced and interviewed several candidates, sharing Marygrove’s story and identifying the right fit to live out the mission and to secure funding to continue the good work in the community.

Our placement was Kama Tate Gregory – she is an amazing individual with a history of success in the nonprofit world.

And we’re doing it again! We will be reaching out to our clients via email the first week of November to share with us the deserving non profit of their choice. We will draw the winner of the 2019 pro bono search later this month.

Thank you to Joe and Marygrove for being such an integral part of the St. Louis community and to Kama for choosing Marygrove to contribute her gifts and talents!