Rochester Women

Mother to Many

Robin Gwaltney nurtures teens at the Rochester Better Chance House

BY VALERIE KIGER

When Robin and Scott Gwaltney agreed to fill in as resident directors at the Rochester Better Chance House, it was a matter of conveniece for them. They would oversee the house and the boys in the program, which helps disadvantaged students attend good high schools, from September until June. Then, the couple and their two young children, just moving into Rochester from Wabasha, would be able to stay in the house all summer while the boys in the program were back home with their parents. That would give the Gwaltneys time to find their own home in the city.

That was in 1993. Nine years later, the Gwaltneys have been a second family to 25 teen-aged boys either already graduated or currently living at the house. "We were foster parents when we lived in Wabasha, and we only took teenagers," Robin Gwaltney said. "We really loved it and we did that for four years. In the last year, we were named foster parents of the year for Wabasha County, and a write-up about us in the newspaper said that we would be moving to Rochester and leaving foster parenting."

The director of the Better Chance Board in Rochester saw the article and asked the Gwaltneys to fill in for departing residential directors for the few remaining months of the school year. They decided to accept the volunteer positions. "I thought, 'We could do that,' and here se are (still). It's been awesome," Gwaltney said.

Part of a Whole

The national program accepts about 15 percent of the thousands of exceptional students who apply every year, asking to attend stronger high schools in hopes of gaining a better chance for admittance into elite colleges. Many come from inner cities where crime and drugs are prevalent and schools are not academically strong. Those who are accepted live in homes set up either for boys or for girls and stay there during the school year from ninth through twelfth grade. They go home to their parents during the summer. Gwaltney said some people mistakenly believe the students in the program have been "in trouble."

"They have loving families but need to escape the drugs, the crime, and the weak school systems. You have never met a better bunch of kids. They are excellent role models for my children. They realize early on that education is what's really important for them--so much so that they're willing to leave their friends and family and come live with a house full of strangers in a different part of the country," she explained.

A World of Work

The Gwaltneys have two children, Brett, twelve, and ten-year-old Jenna. Robin was working at Mayo Clinic as an assistant supervisor in the physical therapy department when the couple decided to move from her home town of Wabasha to Rochester. Scott, a native of Lake City, had been commuting to Winona. The couple chose Wabasha in part because they wanted to be close to Robin's family while their children were infants.

Robin and Scott moved to Rochester in 1993 in order to send Brett and Jenna to the Montessori School. Brett now attends Friedell Middle School and Jenna is in the last year of Ben Franklin's public Montessori program.

Robin had been working at Mayo since 1981, and switched to a part-time schedule about the time her daughter was born. Robin attended two years of college in Rochester, graduating Summa Cum Laude with her marketing degree at Concordia University in 1999. After the move, Scott, now a real estate agent, often encouraged her to join him in the real estate business. "He was always saying, 'You should come work with me.' I said, 'I'm not a salesperson.' But he said it's not about selling, it's about helping people."

In July 2000, Robin got her real estate agent's license, and split her working days between her new real estate career and her position at Mayo. In 2001, she began working full-time with her husband at Coldwell Banker At Your Service and says she had a year that was four times as financially successful as she had hoped. "My broker just told me I made it into the President's Circle, which is the top five percent of Coldwell Banker agents nationwide. Real estate is truly my dream job!"

A Busy Home Life

At the same time, Robin and Scott have eight children at home: Brett and Jenna and the six boys who live in the eight-bedroom, four-bathroom house during the school year, from their freshman year until graduation from John Marshall High School. Currently living in the house are: Greg Monegro, from New York City (Senior); Chan Ry from Santa Ana, California (Junior); Steve Moa from Oakland, California (Junior); Jonathan Meade, from Little Rock, Arkansas (Sophmore); Marcus Mason from Cleveland, Ohio (Freshman); and Danny Leon from Santa Ana, California (Freshman). "So it is a busy life, but it's been fun," Robin said.

She and Scott pencil in the children's events, from sports to plays, making room in their schedules to attend the activities. This spring, Greg graduates from John Marshall High School on June 8th, and a former resident, LeVaur Livingstone, from Newark, N.J., graduates fom Dartmouth College on June 9th. "We are taking a late-night flight out to New Jersey the night of the eighth so we can attend both."

"Real estate is such a great job because it is flexible and allows Scott and I to parent eight kids. We make rules, like if one of us is working after 6 p.m. the other one's home. I go home every day and make dinner for ten people. Sometimes that means running home at the noon hour and putting a couple of roasts in the oven. Sometimes it means I get take-out, but we make it work." One of their important household rules is that the household always has dinner together, no matter how busy everyone is.

In December, Scott and Robin moved into their own office space, allowing them to feel more comfortable bringing their son and daughter to work with them when necessary. "We put our family first, and proved you can do that and still work really hard for your clients. It shows in the great year we had," Gwaltney said. Though Gwaltney says she could use a housekeeper, she and Scott do receive some help parenting the boys in the program. Mayo medical students tutor in the evenings, and Robin's parents (Wayne and Bert Carrels), who are retired, come over from Wabasha a few times a week to toss a load of laundry in the washing machine or start dinner. Everyone who lives in the house helps clean it during a two-and-a-half hour period set aside each Saturday morning.

Rest and Relaxation?

There are a few breaks, too, like the five-day vacation Gwaltney recently took with five other women to Mexico. She left her cell phone and laptop behind and got as much rest (and as much of a tan) as she could. Though it's another activity to fit in their busy schedule, Scott and Robin enjoy managing a team in the Hiawatha Senior Men's Baseball League named the Businessmen. "He manages on the field and I manage all the behind-the-scenes stuff," Robin said.

Still, it's a demanding lifestyle. "At times we've thought, 'Is this enough?' But whenever we bring the idea of leaving the RBC house up to the children, it's like bringing up divorce. They're like, 'What? You want to live with only half the family?' It's not, this is our family and these people live with us. We're all just one big family." Jenna and Brett come to see the boys in the program as big brothers, Robin added, and the boys readily take on that role.

Still, she said, she expects to step down as resident director when Jenna graduates from high school, in 2009. By then, about 40 boys will have lived with the Gwaltneys at the Better Chance House. Add that to the 15 youth they cared for as foster parents, and it's no wonder Robin expects to fill her time traveling the country for weddings and births. After stepping down from the Better Chance House, Robin will continue working in real estate, and may take up some of the other volunteer work she has had to limit for now.

"I could never 'not' do enough to keep me busy. For me to go to work for eight hours and just go home and eat dinner and watch TV--to me it doesn't even sound real."

"There are plenty of rewards in it. My birthday rolls around or Mother's Day, and the flower delivery guys are coming one after the other, and the phones are ringing. They're great," she said of the current and former Better Chance residents. "I couldn't love them any more than if I had given birth to them."