‘Castaway Kid’ returns home

PRINCETON — Successful businessman, author and motivational speaker Rob Mitchell has come a long way from his childhood days at the Covenant Children’s Home in Princeton.

Mitchell will return to Princeton in early May to speak to local schools and club meetings. The Evangelical Covenant Church of Princeton has arranged for Mitchell’s return visit and speaking engagements.

Len Brumbaugh with the Evangelical Covenant Church said Mitchell is scheduled for three talks on May 5, at 10 a.m. at the B.E.S.T. school in Manlius; at noon at the Princeton Rotary Club meeting; and at 7 p.m. at the Evangelical Covenant Church. He will also speak twice on May 6, at 1:30 p.m. at the Logan Junior High School in Princeton and at 7 p.m. at a Youth/Young Life meeting at the Nelson Chapel.

The public is invited to the May 5 meeting at the Evangelical Covenant Church, where a free will offering will be taken to cover expenses.

Brumbaugh said Mitchell has a very inspirational and motivational story to tell.

In an earlier interview with the Bureau County Republican, Mitchell said he came to live at the Covenant Children’s Home when he was 3 years old. He stayed at the home for most of the next 14 years, with periodic contact with his mentally unstable mother. His father, who had attempted suicide, was alive but not a functioning adult. Mitchell left the Covenant Children’s Home at the age of 17 after graduating from Princeton High School.

Mitchel wrote about his life at the children’s home and his life since in the “Castaway Kid” book. He also writes about his spiritual journey which began as a prayer to God to help him, a self-described teenage punk living a nightmare.

Since that time, Mitchell has served as a missionary and worked as a computer salesman. He is now a trust specialist and vice president of investments for a national brokerage firm. Mitchell has placed in the top 5 percent of his firm’s more than 7,000 consultants. His income and net worth has placed him in the top 2 percent of all Americans.

Mitchell said he first started thinking about writing a book in 1990 when he came back to Princeton for a fundraiser for the children’s home. He hopes the story of the “Castaway Kid” is an encouragement to others.

“For a long time, I was embarrassed about my childhood,” Mitchell said. “But I’ve learned that although no one can relate to 14 years of living in a children’s home, they can understand what it’s like to be betrayed by someone they were supposed to be able to trust. This is a world of walking wounded. But I want people to know we can be more than that. There is hope.”

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