by Elka Worner
Richstone Family Center President Roger Van Remmen once compared Dorothy Courtney to Mother Theresa.
“She thought it was too much,” Van Remmen recalled. “But she was okay with us calling her the Godmother of Richstone.”
Under Courtney’s leadership, Richstone grew from a “small home in Hawthorne with a chinchilla farm out back,” serving 35 local families, to a 12,000-square-foot facility serving thousands of families. The Center has a clubhouse, offices for dozens of counselors, two kitchens and a large meeting room, Van Remmen said.
“I just really believed in their mission of serving the whole family,” said Courtney, who served as Richstone executive director for 24 years. “We didn’t turn anyone away. We were there for them as long as they needed us.”
The Hermosa Beach resident will be honored at Richstone’s 50th Anniversary Gala on April 20. She is among 50 “Heart Menders” whose contributions are being celebrated at Sony Pictures Studios.
“Dorothy is a legend, the person who shaped the organization,” said Richstone Development Director Allison Tanaka. “Her heart and fingerprint are still at the core of the work we do today.”
As a testament to Courtney’s dedication and commitment, she will also be honored with a training program that bears her name. The Dorothy Courtney Institute will bring top experts in the field to train the Richstone therapists.
In 1980, Courtney was working toward a master’s degree in history when she answered a small ad in the Los Angeles Times: “Child abuse treatment center needs executive director.”
She had volunteered with organizations that addressed child abuse and domestic violence, but had no experience managing a non-profit. That didn’t stop Courtney, who at 39, was the youngest foreman of the Los Angeles Grand Jury.
Just like her one-year stint on the Grand Jury, she knew the Richstone job was meant to be.
“I had a Joan of Arc moment,” Courtney said. “It’s been told to me. This is my job.”
“I’m not good at just having a job, working at Sears, no,” she said. “It has to fit my philosophical track and my desire to use my life to do something significant.”
A Richstone board member who lived in Manhattan Beach, knew Courtney by reputation as someone who got things done, and suggested the staff interview her.
When asked during the interview why they should hire her, Courtney responded, “Because you need me.” She had done her homework and knew the center was in dire financial straits. They had recently lost their government funding, and laid off 10 people. Their $90,000 budget was barely enough to cover the salaries of the three remaining employees. The pool of 60 applicants had been whittled down to eight.
“I don’t know the other eight people, but I’m guessing they’re all social workers and psych people. Those people don’t know how to go out in the world and raise money. They’re service oriented and I’m not service oriented,” she told the interviewers, who were stunned by her confidence.
“I think the person you hire has to be slightly insane and I am that too. I can be nutty as a fruitcake. I will work 24 hours a day. I will push. I will push you, and I’ll push everybody.”
She got the job and went to work, organizing her first of many fundraisers, a fashion show with renowned costume designer Edith Head. The runway was on the front lawn of a Bel Air mansion. She and Head sat at a table out front collecting tickets. The event raised $25,000, enough to keep the Center going.
Then, through her fierce dedication and relentless drive, Courtney launched a one-woman public relations campaign to get the word out. She produced a brochure about the Center and met with hundreds of people. No one was off limits.
“She approached friends, foundations, celebrities and local businesses,” Van Remmen said. “It got so bad people would cross the street when they saw us coming.”
Her children quipped she should change her last name to Richstone.
“They said that way you can get it in the first sentence, ‘Hi, I’m Dorothy Richstone,’” she said.
Her husband, Bob, an attorney, and their children Colleen, Jake, Mary, Erin, and their families joined the legions of volunteers who dedicated their time to the organization. “There’s no getting out of the family business,” Courtney said.
The fundraising continued with the yearly Caritas Event, where celebrities, who included Arnold Palmer, Dodger announcer Vin Scully, Los Angeles Times sports writer Jim Murray and former Rams general manager Don Klosterman were honored. Richstone’s annual Pier to Pier walk draws hundreds of people each year, and has raised thousands of dollars for the non-profit.
“There is always a need,” said Courtney who now works as an advisor to the Center, which has a waiting list of more than 400 children.
As she reflects on her work, Courtney said she is most proud of the thousands of volunteers and donors she brought into the Richstone family.
She welcomed them to a world of healing perhaps best described in a poem written by a child at Richstone.
The little girl came to Richstone quiet and shy.
She wanted to draw.
A paper was given.
She drew a heart, cut it out,
then tore it into little pieces.
“This is how I feel. My heart is broken.”
She gave the pieces to me.
Time passed and on her last day,
The little girl asked for her heart.
She taped the pieces together very carefully and said,
“My heart was broken and you mended it.”
“To have the ability to mend people, it’s an incredible thing,” Courtney said.
For more information about Richstone and to purchase tickets to the 50th Anniversary Gala, visit RichstoneFamily.org. or call (310) 970-1921. The Richstone Family Center is located at 13634 Cordary Ave., Hawthorne. ER
