Antoinette De Falco Wirth

Antoinette spent her childhood and teen years as a resident of the Marcy Houses. She attended P.S. 55 until 5th grade when she transferred to St. Ambrose School. She graduated from All Saints H.S. and continued her education at Molloy College in Rockville Center where she received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Elementary Education and then earned a Master of Arts degree in Bilingual Bicultural Education at the University of Illinois. After 4 years teaching in Brooklyn (Bushwick) she moved to Michigan where she taught at Eastern Michigan University. In 1986, Antoinette started her own business providing career and employment services to youth in the Detroit Metropolitan area. She eventually concentrated her efforts on working with youth in foster care. In 2005 she received a grant from the Casey Family Programs to provide employment, housing, college preparation services to youth who were aging out of the Foster Care system in the City of Detroit. Her non-profit company (Career Transitions, Inc.) is currently funded by the State of Michigan to provide career and college preparation programs for Foster Youth in conjunction with the University of Michigan-Dearborn. This is a 10-day program introducing youth to financial aid, study habits, ACT/SAT preparation, scholarships, completing applications and writing college essays, and visits to colleges and businesses, etc. In addition to these programs, she served as Board Chair for Catholic Social Services of Wayne County; Human Resources Board for Gibson School for the Gifted; President of Wayne Rotary; Scholarship essay review committee for Wayne Memorial H.S., and Ambassador for Livonia Chamber of Commerce. Antoinette is a recipient of the “Spirit of Detroit” award for service to Foster Youth.