The 21st Century Fund recipient of the 2019 Muriel E. Gilman Award is Mary Lou Edgar.  Mary Lou is a graduate of Neumann College and received her Masters degree in social work from Bryn Mawr College.  Mary Lou has dedicated her entire career to working on behalf of children, particularly those children who have suffered from abuse and neglect: the children most in need of our care and services. Mary Lou exemplifies the standards that Mrs. Gilman displayed in both her professional and volunteer endeavors.

Mary Lou’s employment included working with numerous social service agencies, providing leadership in both the agencies where she worked and throughout the state.  Her employment included  positions as a caseworker, a family therapist for adoptive and foster families, a school counselor, a local and national trainer, and a dedicated advocate for children who have experienced trauma.

As a volunteer, Mary Lou has served on many committees promoting the protection and well-being of children.  For ten years, Mary Lou was the President of Adoptive Families With Information and Support.  While serving in that position, she was instrumental in creating a helpline for adoptive families.  She also served as a member and vice president of the Delaware Coalition for Children, a group dedicated to advocating for the needs of children in foster care.  She was one of the original members of the Child Placement Review Board and a commissioner on the Child Protection and Accountability Commission for over fifteen years.

In 2011, Mary Lou founded A Better Chance for Our Children (ABCFOC), a licensed statewide child placing agency.  ABCFOC  provides both adoption and foster care services.  The agency works almost exclusively to help children who are in foster care — and who have physical and emotional special needs — find permanency.  The agency also provides supportive services to children who are in the custody of the State of Delaware and their families, be they birth, foster, kinship or adoptive.   ABCFOC believes that families must be well trained and supported throughout the life of the adoption.  That means forever, anytime families need help.  Therefore, the agency provides an array of post adoption services to help children and families at all stages of family life.  Since her retirement in 2017, Mary Lou has volunteered as a support for these families.

Of all the work she has done, Mary Lou is most proud that she is a mom!  She and her husband are the parents of five beautiful children, two who came to them through birth, and three through adoption – two of their children came from Delaware foster care. Mary Lou believes that being a parent is the most important job any of us do.  The Edgar children are all grown, but each of their daughters is involved in some type of social service.  They too believe that it is important to give back to our communities!

We, the Board of Directors of the 21st Century Fund for Delaware’s Children, are honored to give the 2019 Gilman Award to Mary Lou Edgar.