"Green Chimneys"
I am thankful for the abundance of documentaries available to educate me. Green Chimneys is an organization I first heard about a little over two years ago when I first started my current job. How exactly I came to be familiar with it, I can’t remember. I just recall sending a link to a coworker who was from New York (GC is in Brewster), and bookmarking a page.
Tonight I watched this documentary following the lives of 3 boys who were residents of the GC facility, a home for children who have been unsuccessful in the foster care system, and also a farm. The documentary was supposed to highlight some of the animal therapy, and while there were some features, I think it missed the mark on that being the focus. I wondered about the credability further when I saw kids with behavioral problems drinking Coca-Cola and supervisors telling children to “shut up.”
Beyond all of that, my heart was touched by the stories of these children. One was the result of his mother’s rape when she was only 14. Another just lost his drug addicted mother to AIDS not long after his father walked away. The third is one of eight children of HIV positive, drug abusing parents, one of whom dies during the course of filming. I know we are all a human family, because more than once there was a tear in my eye for the pain these children were living through. When you can be moved in such a way by people you don’t even know, you understand compassion.
