A CATCHER IN THE RYE
(Eulogy, The Morning-Call, June 26, 2007)

Mr. Mike Danjczek served as President and Executive Director of the Easton Children's Home from 1976 to 2006, when he retired as his health was failing. It was a career of faithfulness to a single goal - the welfare of children in the Lehigh Valley and beyond. As those who knew Mike, and Cynthia Danjczek would attest, for him it was more than work; it was a commitment of nothing less than a lifetime.

Mr. Danjczek grew up in the Easton area and went on to Lehigh University where he was successful on the wrestling team and earned three degrees, including a doctorate. He joined the staff at the Children's Home as a young man, but by the time of his retirement, he had overseen not only its growth but a flourishing of many other social services in the region.

He also held leadership positions with national and statewide agencies, including the National Association of Homes and Services for Children, the Alliance for Children and Families, and the Pennsylvania council of Children, Youth and Family Services. He also serves as campaign chair for the United Way of Northampton and Warren Counties and was active with the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, almost every service club in the area and on the Authority board at Northampton Community College. He also serves as a school board member in the Wilson Area School District.

Just this sampling of Mr. Danjczek's interests might suggest his was a life outside the home. But he and his wife lived personally what he worked for professionally. As director of the Children's Home, he lived on the campus. He knew every child the home cared for, and their families, too. In truth, there were no seams between what they practiced and what Mr. Danjczek preached in his professional career.

The novelist J.D. Salinger got the title for his greatest book from a nightmare that its main character, Holden Caufield, had of children running headlong through a field of rye toward a cliff. He wished for someone to be there to catch them from falling, to save their souls, a "Catcher in the Rye." In the book, because so many children needed to be saved from the world's perils, it was an unrealistic dream. But, for 31 years at the Easton Children's Home, Mike Danjczek made a pretty good try at making the dream happen.