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Father to All
To
Rev. Peter Young, no one is so down and out that
they don’t deserve another chance
Twenty-five
years ago, in a past life mired in alcohol addiction, booze had taken everything
and left Gorge Schindler, attorney-at-law, a broken and lost soul wandering the
desolate streets of Albany’s South End in a drunken haze.
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Full
name: The Rev. Peter George Raymond Paul Young Jr. Vocation:
Roman Catholic Priest Occupation: Pastor of Blessed Sacrament Church in Bolton Landing: founder and director of Peter Young Housing, Industry and Treatment Program, a $10 million operation with 29 locations throughout New York State.
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Schindler
didn’t recall who or where he was in that state of inebriation, but an old
classmate of Schindler’s from Siena College recognized him and confronted him.
It was the Rev. Peter Young, captain of the Siena ’53 baseball team, and the
priest planted his 6-foot-1, 280-pound body directly in Schindler’s path.
“He
said I could either fight him or come along with him to detox,” Schindler
recalled. “He was so big and strong, I could never lick him. So I went
along.”
Today,
like many other drug-and-alcohol-addicted people Young has urged into treatment
over the decades, Schindler remains on the path of recovery and grateful for the
second chance the priest thrust on him.
“He
saved my life from an awful disease,”
Schindler said.
Schindler
,63, of Troy, completed treatment, returned to the legal profession and worked
as a Drafter with the Legislative Bill Drafting Commission at the Capitol. Now
retired, Schindler works with his wife’s company, Lori Schindler Realty, and
is the volunteer president of Young’s Vesta Corp., which acquires and
renovates housing and commercial units for Young’s program. Schindler
supervised Young’s biggest transaction, a $ 1.1 million purchase in 1994 of
the Schuyler Inn, a Menands hotel into which
Young poured an additional $ 1 million in improvements.
The
Schuyler Inn, which employs and houses 68 clients in Young’s treatment program
and trains them for work in the food service and hospitality industry, in a
centrepiece of the priest’s far-flung empire.
Known
collectively as the Peter Young Housing, Industry and Treatment Program, it
houses 1.000 recovering addicts and serves 2.000 more in treatment programs an
any given day. The $10 million annual budget funds 29 locations stretching from
New York City to Albany to Altamont to Utica and beyond. Young uses the analogy
of a three-legged stool to describe his program’s approach: treatment, housing
and employment.
“The
stool can’t stand without all three legs,” Young said.
Despite
quadruple heart bypass surgery a few years ago that temporarily slowed him,
Young, 67, has no intention of relinquishing the stool he has tirelessly
fashioned over the course of four decades.
Although
he has no plans to retire, Young reluctantly
agreed to be the recipient of a testimonial dinner in September organized by his
volunteer staff and supporters as a fund-reaiser for his financially struggling
programs.
“I
remember Father Young as a very spirited young man during our days at Siena and
we had a lot of fun together back
then," recalled Lewis Golub, 65, chairman and CEO of
the Golub Corp., who was in Young’s Class of 1953 at the Luodonville college.
Golub has assisted Young with several projects over the years.
“Underneath
all his joviality and humor beats the heart of a very dedicated, caring
individual who found his satisfaction though serving God and humanity,” Golub
said.
“Since
he was in high school, everybody wanted to be around big Pete. He’s a natural
leader,” said Howard Nolan, 64, an Albany attorney and former state
senator, who has counted Young
among his closest friends since they met in eighth grade playing sports
and were class-mates at Christian Brothers Academy Nolan recalled that Young ran
for student body president as a Senior at CBA in 1949 and collected roughly 95%
of the vote.
Nolan
described himself and Young as inseparable buddies growing up: riding bikes to
each other’s houses; borrowing their fathers’cars and double-dating; playing
baseball in the Albany Twilight League; golfing together at the Albany Country
Club, where Young worked as a summer bartender while a college student
and got to play for free Monday nights.
Nolan
wasn’t prepared when Young in his early 20s and a Siena grad, announced plans
to enter a Catholic seminary to study for the priesthood. “It wasn’t a
surprise in one sense, because Pete was the cleanest-living guy I knew and would
go to the bars with us and had a lot of fun drinking orange soda. He never
touched alcohol,” Nolan said.
And
Nolan had observed a side of his boyhood pal that made the priesthood seem
logical. “ Even in high school, Pete was an extraordinarily good human
being," Nolan said. “I’ve never seen him do anything in
his life off-base or in poor taste, and yet he’s a regular guy, a guy’s guy.
I have nothing but the deepest admiration, love and affection for him."
Entering
the seminary
Young
later worked as chaplain at Mount McGregor Correctional Facility, where his work
with addicted inmates laid the groundwork for his treatment model. Over the
decades, Young has watched the terrain of abuse shift from heroin to crack and
he has battled to provide housing and support for his clients with the advent of
HIV and AIDS.
On
a recent morning, as Young toured the kitchen at the Schuyler Inn and roamed the
halls at the South End school building that serves as his program’s Albany
headquarters, his charisma, almost a cult of personality, was everywhere in
evidence.
“Hey,
father”…”hey. Father”…”hey, father…” was the familiar
salutation, as Young exchanged handshakes, high fives, bear hugs, slaps on the
shulder. One can’t walk five feet with Young without being stopped. Some want
to thank him. Others just seem to want to feel his aura. Many need him to open
doors, to close a deal, to make things happen. “Peace be with you”,
Young said in parting.
The
faces are mostly brown and black, men and women, appearing to be in their 30s
and 40s, speaking in downstate accents, holding a cup of coffee in one hand, a
cigarette in the other on the broken sidewalk outside the building. Coffee is
the drink of the 12-step crowd and Young holds an ever-present cup, a six-ouncer
of flimsy Styrofoam, powdered creamer and sugar stirred with a communal spoon,
that looks like a thimble in his big paws.
“I
love what I’m doing. I’ve got it in my heart,” Young said. “ I’m
not particularly bright in an intellectual way. I’m just persistent . I keep
grinding out the nitty-gritty and
getting results because I believe in people and the program”.
More
faith
“He
was a man’s man who had a heart as big as his body,” Hubbard recalled of the
decade he lived with Young starting in the mid-1960s. “You never know who you
were going to find at the dinner table or who was staying there that night.
Father Young took in whoever was in need”.
Sometimes,
Young, a former boxer, would have to break up fights between drunken combatants,
slinging each man atop a broad shoulder like two sacks of potatoes, and houling
them off to detox.
Hubbard
recalled Young saying morning Mass, teaching high school classes, doing parish
work in the late afternoon, running job retraining programs in the evening,
driving street in the hours approaching midnight and then getting up early the
next morning to start the cycle all over again.
“He’s
indefatigable, always was 101 ball in the air,” Hubbard said
Hubbard
said the best testament of Young’s work can be heard in the voices of
recovering addicts who are in the cafeteria at the diocesan headquarter in
Albany.
“Those
fellas talk about Father Young like he’s their best friend and they’re the
most important persons in father Young’s life,” Hubbard said
“He
has the ability to make people feel as very special, very affirmed, which give
them the confidence and self- esteem they lacked”.
At
the Inn
"Father
Young is real caring and believes everyone deserves a second chance,” said
Joe Sholar, executive chef at the Schuyler Inn who heads a 16-week food service
training program. Sholar’s graduates are employed in several area restaurants
and at the concession operations including the Empire State Plaza and the Pepsi
Arena. Like his alumni, Sholar, who referred to past drug addiction, charts his
employment career first and foremost by the years he has been clean and sober.
“It’s
like he rounds us off, helps us learn how to work with people, to get along in
the world,” said Malik Hamil, head of hospitality at the Schulyler Inn,
who, with Young’s encouragement, is planning to enrol in engineering courses.
Young
receives no salary for running his $10 million empire; he lives on standard
diocesan priestly pay.
But
his world is far from the prosaic life of local pastor. On Monday, he might be
on the mean streets of the Beldford-Stuyvesant section of Brookliyn, where he
has treatment programs, working late into the night and sleeping on a couch.
Tuesday, he’s likely to be meeting with a state legislator. Wednesday nights,
he plays maitre d’ and greets patrons at the Schuyler Inn’s Italian buffet.
Thursday and Fridays he’s on the road to check on his sites around the state.
Weekends, he alights in upscale Bolton Landing on Lake George for his official
job, pastor of Blessed Sacrament parish.
Pastor
in Bolton Landing
Hennessy,
70, has been a friend and volunteer chairman of the board for Young’s programs
since he moved to Bolton Landing 12 years ago. Schindler , Hennessy and Albany
attorney Kevin Luibrand form a triumvirate that keeps Young on task
and reviews all his projects when the priest’s heart outpaces his head
for business.
“When
Father makes a turn without signaling, the
three of us have to say ‘whoa’. And rein him in,” Hennessy said. “The
man has no ego, but he also tries to do too much and sometimes spreads himself
too thin. Every community from New York City to Buffalo wants him to set up a
program and he would if it was up to him”.
Hennessy
said the gruelling pace can occasionally get the best of Young. For instance, on
Memorial Day, Young wound up in the wrong parade. “He was supposed to be in
Glens Falls, but he went to South Glens Falls by mistake. They let him speak and
attend the parade anyway,” Hennessy said.
Hennessy
marvelled at Young’s stamina in a
long career where 14-hour days and heavy travel schedule are commonplace. On
weekends, Hennessy tries to coax Young into relaxing by taking the priest
cruising Lake George in Hennessy’s 22 foot Sea-Ray or golfing at the Sagamore
Golf Course in Bolton Landing, where Hennessy is a member.
A
long memory
“He’s
touched so many lives,” said Maureen Dumas, retired from the state Senate
and a volunteer purchasing agent for Young at Schuyler Inn for the past three
years.
Dumas
described giving an elderly woman a ride home recently from a Bingo game Dumas
runs. “The woman told me a story of how Father Young came to her house at 2
a.m. when her husband was beating he up, how he took her husband into detox and
came back to make sure she was all right,” Dumas said. “It happened
more than 20 years ago, and the woman said she would forever be grateful to
Father Young.”
As
usual on this morning, Young was running late. He didn’t have a car and bummed
a ride from a reporter. He was tardy for
a meeting with the commissioner of the state Department of Social Services. An
abrupt change in state regulation left Young with an overnight $700,000 deficit
in his $10.million budget and he had to get loan to cover the gap.
“I
used to swing for the fences,” Young said, getting out of the car and
preparing to dash across busy North Pearl Street. “But I’d be happy with a
base on balls today”.
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