Penzberg - New sponsor for the Don Bosco youth center in Penzberg: The German province of the Salesians Don Bosco will replace the association in 2022.
Only recently had the people in charge of the youth center and director Carolin Kirchner been happy: They received a generous donation of 33,000 euros from IG Metall Weilheim and the former HAP works council. The money came from the emergency fund, which was set up in the course of the HAP closure (Rundschau reported). With the change of carrier on January 1, 2022, the next special step is pending. The deputy chairman of the previous sponsoring association for children and youth welfare in Penzberg, Rainer Thalbauer, and provincial vicar Father Christian Vahlhaus signed the corresponding agreement. This should "serve to secure the future of the previously voluntary institution", according to the Salesian headquarters in Munich.The facility's current staff of 51 had previously been informed of the transfer of operations. All employment relationships would be taken over by the German province of the Salesians of Don Bosco, it is said.
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Signed the sponsoring agreement: Rainer Thalbauer (left, deputy chairman of the association) and Father Christian Vahlhaus (provincial vicar).
© Salesians Don Bosco
The curative education facility of youth welfare maintains five residential groups for children, adolescents and young adults from three to 21 years of age. 43 young people are cared for at two locations - on Knappenstrasse in Steigenberg and in an outdoor residential group on Karlstrasse. Carolin Kirchner remains the director of today's youth welfare facility, which was founded in 1926 as a “house for outpatient nursing” and later continued as a children's home. The qualified social pedagogue from Bichl has been working for the facility for 13 years and has been in charge since April last year. "We are pleased to have gained a competent and broad-based partner with a large network in the field of youth welfare as a new sponsor in the Salesians of Don Bosco," explains Kirchner.In this way, you can build on and build on the previous work for children and young people in the spirit of Don Bosco on site. Kirchner emphasizes: "The Don Bosco youth center will continue to offer children and young people a safe place in which they can experience attention, help and support in a way that complements their families."
25 institutions in Germany
The Salesians of Don Bosco, as a state-recognized, Catholic agency for youth welfare, currently maintain 25 educational and youth welfare institutions, centers for youth and youth social work as well as schools and day-care centers throughout Germany.
“The family-like approach of the facility” and the previous work had encouraged the Salesians in their decision to take over the agency: It was in line with “Don Bosco's approach to accompanying young people, especially the disadvantaged among them.
We want to be there for them and offer them a home, ”affirmed Provincial Vicar Vahlhaus.
In future a development association
The previous sponsoring association will be converted into a sponsoring association. The 45 members of the association from Penzberg and the surrounding area voted for the transfer of operations at a general meeting on October 26th. With the handover, the aim is to ensure the continuation of the facility for the benefit of the children and young people as well as the employees and “hand it over to technically competent hands”, explains the deputy chairman Thalbauer. He also makes it clear that it takes a lot of effort to maintain the high educational standard and at the same time to do pending renovations in the youth center. The modernization of the aging property in Steigenberg is a pressing issue. Thalbauer underlines:"The Don Bosco youth center will continue to rely on the broad support of its previous network and on donations."
