26 Apr An advocate for the outsider

If you’ve ever been the outcast, the outsider, or the underdog, you well know the importance of an advocate. Advocates speak for those whose voices aren’t being heard, whose needs aren’t being met, or whose importance isn’t acknowledged. Robbie Garrett is an advocate.

Since 2018, Robbie has worked alongside his wife, Angelene, as a caregiver in Saunders House at Westview Boys’ Home. Every day Robbie advocates for the young men who are in his care because he hears their concerns, understands their needs, and sees their importance. In team meetings, he often speaks from the perspective of the youth in our care. His ability to do this work is strengthened by his own experiences in growing up in a children’s home. Robbie understands the feelings our young men experience because he has felt them.

After Robbie graduated from high school, he served on carriers in the United States Navy for eight years. After honorably completing his service to his country, Robbie returned to Oklahoma, where he became a houseparent at a children’s home. In 2018, Robbie and Angelene moved their family to Westview, where they have diligently cared for the young men on the ranch. As a consequence, Robbie has also advocated for youth with the school system, seeking to make certain that careful records are kept of lesser-known sports.

While at Westview, Robbie has become an Oklahoma Certified Child Care Worker and an NRCYS Residential Child and Youth Care Worker. He also completed his BS in Sports Fitness Management at Cameron University.

Sports are, in fact, one of the tools Robbie uses to help young men become healthy–physically, socially, and mentally. Whether basketball or cornhole, you’ll most often find the young men at Saunders doing something to stay active and busy.

His concerns about activity and fitness caused him to look for better resources for our young men. Robbie was well aware that Westview’s original campus had a gymnasium built for the old Westview School by the WPA. The old gym was being used for storage and was in disrepair, but Robbie saw those issues as something he and the boys could overcome. Steadily, week after week, Robbie and the guys worked on the gym until it was ready again for basketball. Now he is helping the administration put together plans to resurface the basketball court and replaster the stone walls. We’re proud of Robbie and excited about the work he is accomplishing!

Would you like to work alongside this advocate in his work with young men? If you wish to support Robbie’s efforts to restore the gym, please email John Moore at jmoore@wbh.email and ask how. We will be glad to help you partner with Robbie in this wonderful project.