Giving Back: Benevolent Spirit

he Benevolent Spirit Award was conceived to honor individuals who have generously given their time to one organization for at least two years. But for this year’s winner, Lesa Kastler, it may be better to rename the award “Irrepressible Spirit.” Lesa has served both as a volunteer and board president of A Child’s Haven, a treatment program for children whose development has been delayed by poverty, neglect, and abuse. When her board term for the nonprofit was over, she couldn’t see herself stepping away from the program’s mission, so she happily signed on as campaign chair for the organization’s expansion effort.

“I always felt we have a unique opportunity to bring transformation to many more of Greenville’s children in crisis,” says Kastler. With a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction, and service on the boards of the Speech, Hearing and Learning Center and the Center for Developmental Services, Kastler says it’s easy to see how A Child’s Haven prepares developmentally delayed children for school. A lecture on brain development sponsored by the Greenville Hospital System really drove that point home.

“Sometimes parents teach their children instinctively, but quite often for those in poverty, it doesn’t happen.” The good news, Kastler notes, is that children and their caregivers can be taught. Early intervention is absolutely critical, however. In Greenville County, nearly 8,000 children are suffering during their most vulnerable years—under the age of six. “We really do have a window. If someone doesn’t do something, what chance do they have?”

A Child’s Haven is only able to treat seventy-seven children at a time. “To be good stewards of the effort, we need to build capacity,” she says. That naturally led her to take the lead role in the campaign to raise $7.3 million to purchase, equip, and endow an old school building, and create a larger home for the program. To that end, she’s worked tirelessly gathering volunteers, setting goals, making presentations, planning events, and spreading the word.

Despite the economic downturn, capital-campaign fundraising efforts have brought in $2.6 million so far, an amount that Kastler says affirms the importance of the work. “We can’t just say when times get better we’ll try again.” She also says having the former two-term U.S. secretary of education Richard Riley as honorary chair of the campaign “is an endorsement of true magnitude.”

In the meantime, Kastler says she’ll do everything she can to help. And with visions of expanding the program to eventually become a training ground for others across the country, it doesn’t look like she’ll be slowing down soon. “We haven’t seen the full fruits of this yet. I just can’t give up.