You may not know of Father Flanagan, but Boys Town's motto you know.

[valley ranch]

Father Edward J. Flanagan

Father Edward J. Flanagan is the founder and visionary for what’s known today as Boys Town. He had a dream that every child could be a productive citizen if given love, a home, an education and a trade. He accepted boys of every race, color and creed. Father Flanagan firmly believed, “There are no bad boys. There is only bad environment, bad training, bad example, bad thinking.”


http://www.boystown.org/about/father-flanagan/Pages/default.aspx

"He ain't heavy, Father ... he's m' brother."

http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.edu.007

BOYS TOWN COMMEMORATION
Added on September 17, 2007





The 90th anniversary celebration of the founding of Boys Town in Nebraska in 1917 by the late Father Flanagan from Ballymoe, Co Galway (The Irish Times, September 12th).

Boys Town also linked a priest with singing but in an oblique way. The story goes that when Father Flanagan once encountered a boy carrying a disabled child, the boy said: "He ain't heavy, Father, he's my brother." Father Flanagan chose this statement as the motto for Boys Town and commissioned a statue based on the event.

Many years later, songwriters Bobby Scott and Bobby Russell penned a classic pop song based on the motto, and He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother subsequently became a number-one hit for The Hollies. - Yours, etc,

KEVIN O'SULLIVAN,

Letterkenny,

Co Donegal.

 

[Nyboy]

My father use to donate to them. Several of the boys who spent time their paint a very different picture of life there.