On the eve of retirement, Margie Wakeham is saluted for decades spent helping families get on their feet

Sep. 27--Somewhere in the office at Families Forward, a ship's bell is clanging. Five times.

Margie Wakeham makes her way toward the sound, quickening her step with each clang.

"Come!" she orders two visitors as she steps down a hallway. "Somebody just got housed."

That's the tradition. Every time a family who was sleeping in a car or a shelter gets an apartment, someone at Families Forward rings what's become known as "The Good News Bell."

The bell symbolizes help. The organization, which launched under a different name, has been helping shelter-challenged families since 1984. Help at Families Forward means everything from assistance in finding and paying for housing and food, to financial counseling, to leads on employment. The group's motto is simple: "There's No Place Like Home."

But it turns out today's Good News clang isn't about a house. It's about a $50,000 donation that's been made to the organization's annual fundraiser.

Wakeham learns this and cheers, lifting her arms in a victory salute. Giddy staff members crowd the bell.

"That's great news," she says.

This year's fundraising event will be special, but in a bittersweet way. It'll be the last for Wakeham, who is retiring from Families Forward after a 30-year run.

She'll be honored for her work, not only as leader of an organization that has put roofs over the heads of thousands of parents and children, but as a consistently strong voice for offering compassion to homeless people in Orange County.

Wakeham rescued the organization from an embezzlement scandal in 1993. Since then, she's guided it to recovery, housing thousands of people and getting top ratings for fiscal management from nonprofit watchdogs GuideStar and Charity Navigator.

Now, she's blunt about why she's leaving.

"I'm 75."

Energy

There are things Wakeham still wants to do, including travelling while she's got the energy for it. First up: a December trip to Europe with her daughter. After that, in January, she and husband John Wakeham, also recently retired, will spend a month in the Near East.

Her last day, technically, is Monday, Sept. 30. But Wakeham has a couple of business items on her schedule next week; a meeting with a county supervisor and a nonprofit summit. Plus, she plans to continue as a mentor, coaching other nonprofit organizations.

Wakeham initially planned to call it quits 10 years ago, at 65. But she kept putting it off.

"I didn't want to retire. There are so many good things happening here. I mean, somebody just gave us $50,000. It's just the coolest thing."

She says something similar about a lot of contributions to Families Forward, whether they come from deep-pocket donors, a 7-year-old Girl Scout Brownie who as a birthday present to herself donated some toys for needy children, or any of the more than 2,000 volunteers who annually give of their time.

"No matter how it happens," Wakeham says, "it's all so meaningful to me."

'Better fortune'

A middle child, Wakeham grew up in San Diego, where her uncle, Charles Dail, was a two-term mayor and a three-term member of city council. Her father, John Dail, was in the insurance business, like his brother, and was active in Democratic politics.

As a young woman, just after college, Wakeham wanted to join the Peace Corps, but her father asked why she had to go so far away to help people. Instead, she became a group counselor to incarcerated youth and, later, an investigator for the juvenile court systems in San Diego and Orange counties.

She married John Wakeham in 1969. The couple lives in the same house in Irvine's Northwood neighborhood that they bought in 1971. They have no plans to leave. It's where they raised their three children.

Wakeham halted her career to be a stay-at-home mom, but got involved in service organizations and community action. She became aware of homelessness after hearing of the struggles of families whose children went to the same schools and played sports with her kids.

"Truly, they were families just like mine. But I had better fortune."

Back then, as now, families were being uprooted by financial loss, divorce, health problems, domestic violence, and substance abuse. Whatever the circumstance, Wakeham says she learned to listen to their stories before jumping to conclusions.

One recent client of Families Forward explained how domestic violence put her and her three children in jeopardy. The woman, who asked that her name not be publicized, said her ex-husband suffers from mental illness and made their lives chaotic.

She eventually got a restraining order, and hasn't seen him in years.

But even when her ex husband stopped being an immediate threat, the woman said her family reeled. Her oldest child began exhibiting the same mental health issues as her ex-husband. And when her employer of 13 years re-organized, she lost her job. She's a non-citizen born in the Philippines and, she said, her unresolved immigration status jeopardized her work permit.

By the time she contacted Families Forward, about a year ago, her family was bouncing between her car, motels, and short stays with relatives.

Families Forward provided food from its pantry, therapy, career counseling and a lead on a good-paying job. The group also helped her with move-in costs and a few months' rental assistance at the apartment, where she now lives with her youngest child, who is still in high school. The woman said she now pays her own way.

"They were very caring," she says of the staff at Families Forward. "They were willing to find a way to assist me, not just with the programs they provide but (by) sharing other resources."

The woman said she has one regret -- she never got a chance to meet Wakeham.

"I've got to tell her my story," she said.

"Maybe she will change her mind; maybe she'll decide not to retire."

To the rescue

Families Forward is only part of Wakeham's involvement in the community. She served on the Irvine school board from 1985 to 2002. She lost a bid for an Irvine City Council seat in 2008. She also spent about a year as an appointed member of Orange County's Commission to End Homelessness.

But she views Families Forward as her most enduring work.

"I think we've taken a big dent out of homelessness."

In the early 1990s, Wakeham had been a board member of what was then known as Irvine Temporary Housing when the executive director was arrested for embezzlement. Wakeham jumped into the role of director. And, along with the program's then-counselor and case manager, Evie Huebner, she helped to chart a new direction for what grew into Families Forward.

Wakeham credits Huebner, now in her late 80's and living in Riverside County, for teaching her not to enable people or tell them what to do. Instead, she says, her goal is to empower clients so they can make their own choices -- and then hold them accountable for the outcomes.

She smiles as she admits this isn't her natural inclination.

"It's a little bit tricky for me. Because I think I'm mostly right; that I know what's best for them."

Wakeham also was smart about the business end of running a nonprofit.

As Wakeham steps away, Families Forward has assets of about $15 million. This includes 35 apartment units the organization owns and operates. Those apartments provide some of the shelter used by more than 200 at-risk and homeless families a year. They typically need temporary assistance with rent for about six to eight months.

Families Forward also has developed partnerships in the apartment rental community to take in other struggling families. And, two years ago, the organization helped form Family Solutions Collaborative, a group of about two dozen nonprofits working together to diminish the frustration and delays that homeless families often experience while bouncing from agency to agency in search of assistance.

Through the collaborative, Families Forward expanded its reach from south county to include all of Orange County.

In good hands

Wakeham will be succeeded by Madelynn Hirneise, who started with Families Forward in 2012 as a housing resource specialist. Over the years she has overseen the growth of numerous programs within the organization, including housing acquisition.

Wakeham called Hirneise "a rising star" in the nonprofit world.

When asked about her own achievements, Wakeham isn't as effusive.

She calls herself a "figurehead" for a community -- staff, board members, donors, and volunteers -- who have come to work together to better people's lives through Families Forward.

"It's not mine," she insists. "It's ours."

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