His Dream For Kids: A Chance at Childhood

George Konheim wasn’t even born when his father died. By age 8, he was a family breadwinner; he made about $2 a week selling newspapers and bagels at night, of which he gave his mother $1.75.

He took correspondence courses to fill in his education. He became a mechanical whiz, an electronics expert and a builder, and was a millionaire by the time he was 30.

Konheim, 76, is a man who has big dreams and carries them out. But he would much rather talk about the troubled children he has helped than the money he has made.

Next year, the Beverly Hills resident will step down after 27 years as president of the board of directors of Vista Del Mar. His legacy will be a nationally renowned residential treatment facility for abused children and a $25-million endowment.

On 15 wooded acres in Cheviot Hills, Vista Del Mar was founded in 1908 as the Jewish Orphans Home of Southern California. When Konheim first visited there 40 years ago, it wasn’t even close to the world-class facility it is today.

“The children resembled me when I was a kid,” he recalled. “If my mother had died instead of my father (motherless children at that time were often placed in orphanages), I probably would have been lucky to have been at a place like that. . . . What impressed me originally and what still impresses me is this is a place where the care of children and the reunification of families are No. 1.”

Konheim gets personally involved in every project he takes on. Years ago, the campus needed a central kitchen, and he approached a wealthy corporate executive seeking a donation. “I was going to ask for $15,000 and suddenly $250,000 came out of my mouth, and we got it.” After that, Konheim said, he never hesitated to go to his friends and ask them to give.

Early on, he had a dream of serving, under one roof, all of the needs of children: psychological, medical and educational. So for more than 20 years he worked toward that goal.

Today, with the Reiss-Davis Child Study Center, the Julia Ann Singer Center and Home-SAFE Child Services affiliated with Vista Del Mar, that dream has come true. The complex is staffed with 187 professionals providing psychiatric residential treatment, parent and child counseling, off-site community treatment units, after-care services for residential patients, day treatment for children, counseling for unmarried parents, and foster care and adoption services. (Among other things, Vista del Mar is one of the largest private adoption agencies in the country.)

About two-thirds of the 88 children living at Vista Del Mar have experienced severe psychiatric problems and suffer from depression or suicidal tendencies. But you’d never know it from watching them walk around the campus or from looking at their pleasant living quarters and classrooms.

What Vista Del Mar teaches its patients, said Silvio Orlando, associate executive director, is to live with their problems and adapt to the outside world.

Consider, for example, Simon, 18, an aspiring journalist: “A year ago I was living alone. When I first came here I was depressed and tried suicide. I started not caring about school and now I’m going to college.” Or Tonesha, 15, who had stopped going to school before she became a resident at Vista Del Mar. Now she goes to a regular high school and has a job on weekends. Noah, 14, is a photography buff who, through the efforts of his teacher, Ed Kenny, has found a job in a camera store. He also manages the darkroom in Kenny’s classroom.

Kenny keeps a wall covered with pictures of residents, whom he calls “my” children--the before-and-afters--and all of the successes, such as the 27 children who are now on college scholarships provided by Vista del Mar. Kenny credits George Konheim with giving them the opportunity.

The budget for Vista Del Mar, according to Laura Fuhrman, director of development and community relations, is close to $9 million. Vista Del Mar cared for about 500 children and their families in 1992-93. The population is now 70% Jewish. “All children are accepted if we think this is an appropriate placement,” said Fuhrman, who started at Vista Del Mar 20 years ago as a volunteer.

Konheim insists that he gets more out of his association with Vista than he gives, but there is no doubt that this is the house that George built. The man who had no childhood made it his mission to make sure troubled children would be cared for and loved.

“One thing I do not give up when I step down at Vista (Del Mar) are the surprise meetings with people who just walk up to me and say ‘Do you remember me? You helped me 10 years ago’ or ‘You gave me my diploma 20 years ago.’ How can you measure that in any equation? I feel blessed.”