Peggy Busick receiving Lewis Hine Award

(L)Jeffrey Newman, President and Executive Director, National Child Labor Committee and (R) Erik Butler, Chair, National Child Labor Committee

Peg Busick, a founder and board member of Children’s Center was chosen as an honoree for the 2014 Lewis Hine Award for Service to Children and Youth presented by the National Child Labor Committee.  She received the prestigious award at a ceremony on February 18, 2014, in New York City.

Peg was one of ten honorees for the award, which is named for the acclaimed NCLC photographer who documented early-20th century exploitation of children and whose photos were instrumental to the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, a federal law that protected children from workplace exploitation. The LEWIS HINE AWARDS honor those individuals, as professionals or volunteers, for their unheralded and exceptional service to young people. The recipients, who this year hail from as far away as Washington state and as close as  New York, are selected by a distinguished panel of judges from among hundreds of nominations submitted each year by business, community, and nonprofit leaders.

Mrs. Busick was honored for her more than two decades of hard work devoted to ensuring that mental health services are provided to the children in Vancouver, Washington, and the surrounding Clark County, in a timely fashion. She worked with several others to create a mental health agency, which became Children’s Center in 1989.  In the late 1980s, appalled that families were put on lists and required to wait months for mental health services for their children, Mrs. Busick networked to help build the board of directors, helped secure private donations to cover initial start-up costs and she and other board members met with local and State representatives to convince them of the need for such an organization dedicated to children’s mental health. She and her co-creators painted and scrubbed floors to get the facility ready, brainstormed ideas, mentored board members, and recruited and inspired volunteers to lend their expertise such as accounting and legal work for the agency.  As a result, Children’s Center has continued to expand since 1989, with Mrs. Busick playing a significant role as part of the Steering Committee leading the $6 million capital campaign. Today, Children’s Center provides mental health services to over 1,600 clients and families, helping them deal with depression, abuse, trauma and co-occurring disorders.

We are fortunate to have Peg Busick in our community!  Peg has served on the board of Children’s Center continuously since the doors opened in 1989.  Congratulations to Peg on this well deserved honor!