Lady Blue Eyes_ My Life With Frank - Barbara Sinatra [124]
Finally he couldn’t stand it anymore. “All right! I’m sick of hearing about it. I’ll buy the auditorium.” That nearly put me away completely.
From then on it was easy. Walter Annenberg asked me how many rooms I’d sold, and when I told him the two largest spaces had been spoken for, he asked me what was the next one down. “The office,” I replied. “It’s seventy-five thousand dollars.”
Walter nodded and said, “I’ll pay for it.” Not only did he write a check there and then but he and his wife, Lee, continued to contribute to the project for the rest of their lives. So much for not helping. Selling the rest was plain sailing. Our friend the businessman and racehorse owner Danny Schwartz bought four or five of the ten-thousand-dollar rooms. Father Rooney raised the money to buy one and persuaded a bishop from Ireland to fund another. Vince Kickerillo, an old friend and the husband of Mary Miller, a singer signed to Reprise, was more than generous. With the money raised, we found a builder from Riverside and were ready to begin. Frank and I broke the ground on his seventieth birthday in December 1985, confident that the 12,500-square-foot children’s center would open the following year.
I was so happy that the project had worked out and hoped that children and staff alike would be able to make good use of the new building. The therapies offered by this not-for-profit organization would be as innovative as the building and become one of America’s most comprehensive programs for the victims of abuse. Although I wasn’t sure at first, Barbara Kaplan persuaded me to lend my name to the building, which would be known as the Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center. But not long after work had started on the site, she and her husband moved away, leaving me in sole charge. I couldn’t possibly walk away from a project for which I had become the figurehead.
The center now has around twenty staff annually treating as many as nine hundred children aged between four and eighteen. Funded by more art auctions, galas, and charity golf tournaments than I care to remember, it helps victims of physical, sexual, or emotional abuse or neglect who are referred to us via individuals, the criminal justice system, child protective agencies, churches, and schools. Some have symptoms of depression or anxiety, are self-harming or unusually quiet. Others are more vocal about what has happened. Our pledge is that no child should ever be turned away, regardless of financial status—this key part of our mission statement was Frank’s idea. As well as long-term counseling, the focus is on prevention and education to break the cycle of abuse. Our staff produce pamphlets and videos, host forums, and attend conferences, all aimed at prevention as well as treatment.
When we opened, we attempted to treat the perpetrators as well as the victims, but that approach didn’t work out, so we changed the policy to focus solely on the victims. Frank had his own ideas about how to deal with those who abused children. “You can talk to them all you want,” he told me, “but let me teach them and they’ll never do it again.” As I rather foolishly announced at the time, “My husband is from a totally different school. He wants to round up all the men and break their legs. So, he’s not allowed in.”
The center offers tranquillity and safety to victims—perhaps for the first time in their lives. It is a place of trust, where the healing process can begin. The cheerful entry hall has an inviting play area with giant stuffed animals and several of Frank’s most brightly colored paintings. There is another large open-plan area decorated in rainbow colors with an atrium and glass doors leading into private courtyards planted with cacti and other desert plants. The whole atmosphere is of love and warmth. Even the forensic examination room is nonintrusive, with nursery murals on the walls and ceiling enhanced by soft lighting. Special puppets and toy bears are used to help children explain where and how they were touched. There’s an interview