‘Each person is a person of worth’
Liz Rogers/Observer-Reporter
In this photo from February, Mary Jo Podgurski is shown at the Teen Center with, front row, from left, Kendle Haught, Xavior Burns-Elliott, Malayiah Matthews, Willow Maffio and Hunter Czajkowski; back row, Robert Clark, LaShauna Carruthers, Mary Jo and Christian Messner.
Mary Jo Podgurski officiated the wedding of Chelsie and Zach Correll.
Mary Jo Podgurski
Dr. Mary Jo Podgurski with a book she wrote, “Sex Ed is in Session: An Adult Guide to Connecting with Young People About Life’s Tough Topics”
Step inside Common Ground Teen Center in Washington’s downtown, and it quickly becomes apparent.
This is someplace special.
It’s a place where young people of different cultures, disabilities, sexualities and genders can gather, free from judgment, from criticism, from intolerance.
It’s a place, a refuge even, where all are treated equally within a safe and secure environment.
And it’s the product of a lifetime of work from founder and director, Dr. Mary Jo Podgurski.
“Kids come to the center because they want to connect,” she said during a recent interview in her office a few blocks away at The Academy for Adolescent Health. “When I look at a young person, I see their worth, even if they don’t see it. I listen and I hear what they have to say, even if what they have to say isn’t what I’d hoped they’d say.
“I teach them what I think they need, not what I wish they would ask me for, because my center, my focus, is them, and when you do all of that, young people know that they’re worthy in your eyes, and love and worthiness are really connected.”
Clearly, her words – and actions – resonate with the young people for whom she has dedicated her life.
“Each person is a person of worth,” said LaShauna Carruthers, a senior at Washington High School and peer educator who works at the center. She was part of a group gathered at the Teen Center one day last week after school.
“That’s her saying, her phrase. Not a lot of people go by that. A lot of people say they do, but it’s not entirely true. But with Mary Jo, you can feel it. Her aura is just so chill. She has a very good vibe all the time.
“No matter what’s going on, she’s always there. Sometimes whenever it feels like there’s honestly nobody else, you know that Mary Jo’s there. She makes a really big difference – huge.”
Christian Messner, a Trinity High School senior and peer educator who also works at the center, met Mary Jo when she taught his sex education class.
“You could instantly tell she had this respect for teens and general acceptance. It’s really rare to find anyone with that,” he said.
Mary Jo says it’s easy to respect them, adding, “They’re feisty, though. To define feisty from my perspective means you have spirit. And you’re resilient. You persevere. That’s what I admire about young people.”
Mary Jo – affectionately known as “M.J.” or the “Sex Lady” by many – dismisses the notion she’s special, instead crediting her late parents for mentoring and teaching her the bedrock principles of respect, compassion and acceptance.
“They’re good people,” she said. “But I think you have to see the good in them. It breaks my heart when people don’t see good in them. As soon as you start judging them they know. Heck, as soon as you start judging adults they know.
“I hear them, and they know that. Some kids connect mostly because they don’t have any connections in other places. Others connect because they want to give back. And I don’t think people realize how much young people like to give back. I have some of the cream of the crop that come to the center. I have valedictorians, student leaders and kids who win writing awards, artists, kids with a lot of talent. They’re there because they want to give back to others. And they’re very good to each other.”
And the connections she’s made are lifelong: Many of her former students reach out to her long after they’ve bid farewell to their teenage years.
“They stay in touch. I still hear from folks in their 40s that I taught or mentored as young parents in the ’70s,” she said. She’s even gone so far as to preside over the marriages of a few, becoming a wedding officiant through the online website, American Marriage Ministries.
Two breast cancer diagnoses might have slowed her down a bit, but never stopped Mary Jo from her work. The author of 34 books, including “The Nonnie Series,” for children on challenging topics, she has just finished one more, “Sex Ed is in Session: An Adult Guide to Connecting with Young People About Life’s Tough Topics.”
“I genuinely love what I do,” said Mary Jo, the mother of three and grandmother of six. “I promised myself way back – I started in 1988, but started working with kids way earlier – that the day I didn’t love it was the day I’d stop.”
From nurse to teacher
Her years as a young nurse laid the groundwork for the educator and counselor she would become.
It was the 1970s, and Mary Jo was working as a pediatric nurse at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.
“We had 10 or 11 deaths every week,” she recalled. “And nothing makes you more aware of your mortality more than wrapping little bodies. And we also had this phenomenal kind of nursing that I’ve never had since.”
She was referring to primary nursing, a system that emphasizes continuity of care. For Mary Jo, it meant handling a small caseload and learning every detail about her patients, from chemotherapy regimens to how they preferred their hamburgers.
“And when our primary care patient went into end stage, other nurses took your kids and you spent 12-hour shifts really focusing on that child, that parent, that family,” she continued. “My job was to take vitals, help them understand death, sit there while the baby did that Cheyne-Stokes – that horrible breathing…. It was a whole lot of giving of self, and I liked it, but I cried a lot.”
And it changed her.
She and her husband, Rich, returned to Pennsylvania, where she would begin teaching. Mary Jo had had her fill of death and was determined to focus on birth. She began teaching childbirth, separating the teen parents in her classes from the adults.
“I knew they didn’t fit in,” she added. “And I didn’t charge them. I fed them. They needed more information. They needed a mentor.”
When Mary Jo was pregnant with her first child, she was asked to do a home visit of a pregnant 12-year-old in foster care.
“When I walked in, I knew she was depressed,” she said.
Mary Jo introduced herself to the girl, who responded, “Who the (expletive) do you think you are?” pulling a blanket over her head.
“I just held space with her for an hour without talking, and when the hour was up, I said, ‘I’m going to go now. Is it OK if I come back?’ She agreed. The next time she had half a blanket on, and there never was a third time because she went into labor.”
Mary Jo stayed with her throughout labor and delivery. The girl had decided to give up her baby. She had been with a 16-year-old who thought she was older and was not in her life.
“Everybody assumed she was promiscuous,” Mary Jo said. “But she wasn’t. She just didn’t have ownership of self. She was not sexually assaulted to make this baby, but she did not know that she had the power to say no to him.
“She changed me – phenomenally so. That’s when I decided to teach sex ed, because of that experience with her.”
She started volunteering with pregnant teens until she had money to pay a staff, and in 1988 founded Washington Health System Teen Outreach. Since then, she estimates she and her team of educators taught 250,000 students in 48 schools in five counties.
“There’s nothing about my life I don’t love, except I’m not fond of grant writing,” Mary Jo, who turns 70 in March, said with a chuckle. “I think I’m very blessed. This is very easy for me to do what I do. It’s not an effort.
“The time goes so fast when I’m with them. It just flies.”