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March 26, 2013Staying power no secret for successful businesses
March 26, 2013
Four ladies. Thirteen children. Thirty grandchildren. And even 33 great-grandchildren.
For those four Tri-parish ladies, that’s a whole lot of experience with young ones, and all of them put their expertise to good use five days a week as members of the Houma-Terrebonne Diocese Foster Grandparent Program.
“I love the kids,” said Ruth Short, a foster grandparent at Gibson Head Start. “They come up to me and hug me, and they call me Auntie Johnny. I love to help them with things, especially writing. Sometimes they just scribble, but I tell them it looks beautiful.”
Program volunteers like Short are placed at sites like day cares, Head Start centers and elementary schools around the area. Each volunteer is placed with one or two disadvantaged, disabled or at-risk children with divorced parents, social or adjustment issues and even children whose grandparents have passed away or have parents that are in jail. Each volunteer, who must be 55 or older, usually works about 20 hours a week and receives a stipend of $230 a month.
Short, of Gibson, has been with the program for five years, and, as the only foster grandparent at the Head Start center, she fills a range of duties including offering emotional support children to who may have been abused or neglected, assisting children with physical disabilities and illnesses and coaching children with literacy issues.
“Some look for love that they may not get at home, and the foster grandparent program gives them the extra love they may be looking for,” Short said. “When I see them cry, it makes me want to cry. Then they say they don’t want me to cry.”
From 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. each day of school, Short assists the children she is assigned to as well as the other children with things like music, reading and washing their hands to brushing their teeth, learning the alphabet and proper etiquette.
“All those things they should know by the time they get to kindergarten,” Short added.
In addition to helping children, the program also keeps the older volunteers active and involved in the community.
“I retired from being head custodian at Gibson Elementary, but I still wanted to work in the school system,” she said. “I worked at my daughter’s day care for 11 years, and I just wanted to keep working with children.
“You feel like you have accomplished something when you leave here. I will keep volunteering as long as I can. It’s a great program, and I just love it.”
Short is one of many Houma-Terrebonne Diocese foster grandparents who will attend the 2013 National Foster Grandparents Volunteer Conference Nov. 1-4 at the Houma-Terrebonne Civic Center.
“So far, we have 50 locals signed up for the event,” said Van Johnson, supervisor of the Houma-Terrebonne Diocese Foster Grandparent program. “The local group has grown from just a few people when it started in 1997 to about 84 members this year, and we have Foster Grandparents in 40 sites throughout the Tri-parish area. The program turned from convincing sites that we would be an asset in the classroom to sites calling and saying they need more of the volunteers.”
Johnson expects about another 300 foster grandparents, many of them from other states including Kansas, Iowa, Alabama and Mississippi, to attend the November conference, which will feature a series of meetings and seminars on autism, ADHD, bullying, nutrition and fitness, alcohol, drug and prescription abuse and even arts and crafts.
As supervisor of the local program, Johnson has a first-hand view of how the system benefits both the volunteers and the children.
“The program is a Godsend for the foster grandparents,” he said. “It gets them up and moving in the morning. Instead of sitting at home, they are providing a much needed service for the community. They say it keeps them young, energetic. At the end of day, seeing a withdrawn child come out of shell, they have accomplished something.
“I recently received a call from a pre-k teacher with a Foster Grandparent-child pairing in her classroom. The child has barely said a word in class since September, but, earlier this month, the child turned to his Foster Grandparent and said ‘Look Maw-Maw, it’s raining.’ The teacher was thrilled that child finally felt comfortable to communicate in the classroom.”
Over at J.B. Maitland Elementary School in Morgan City, one of the school’s four Foster Grandparents, who are on campus from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. each school day, has also watched her two foster grandchildren blossom since the start of the school year.
“One of the students didn’t talk too much, but he finally came out of his shell,” said Foster Grandparent Audrey Williams of Morgan City, who helps out in a kindergarten classroom. “Now he speaks, reads and participates in class. The other student I help just needed to work a little bit on his reading skills, but he is doing much better now. It’s great to know that you have accomplished the goals of the Foster Grandparent Program and helped the kids.”
Williams, who has been a foster grandparent for 11 years, became a volunteer after she retired from the housekeeping supervisor position at Teche Regional Medical Center.
“I wanted to help make a change in the community after I retired, and the program gives me a chance to learn more about our school system,” Williams said. “It’s my first time getting to work with children, and I enjoy working with them. We are trying to start these children off in the right direction and help them to draw, read and write. Many of them need help in writing.”
“When I’m not here, they tell me they missed me when I get back,” she continued. “I’ve had some leg trouble the last few weeks, but still try to come every day because I love all my babies.”
Fellow J.B. Maitland “Granny” Rosa Butler of Patterson is so taken with the children in her kindergarten class that she believes she missed her calling in life.
“Helping these children is my passion, and now I wish I would have studied to be a teacher when I was younger,” Butler said. “I am more aware of how much it takes children to accomplish their goals, and we teach them things they need to know how to do. It’s amazing, seeing them learn. Before it’s over, they know how to read.”
“The program is really a blessing, and I am amazed at all the things we help the students accomplish,” she said. “I love it and think it is a rewarding program. I even recommended it to a friend this morning.”
Word of mouth is how Katherine Stovall, also from Patterson, found out about Foster Grandparents, and she also enjoys helping her foster grandchildren with reading, writing and math.
“I heard about program from another foster grandparent,” said Stovall, who assists in one of J.B. Maitland’s first grade classrooms. “Home life is hard for some children in today’s world. Some live in home where family members are using drugs or in homes where their parents don’t care about them. We show them love and that they who can be who they want to be in life. I tell them to go home, stand in the mirror and say ‘I can be who the Lord wants me to be.’”
Katherine Stovall, a foster grandparent at J.B. Maitland Elementary in Morgan City, helps students Joseph “Jo-Jo” Moore, 6, left, and Kyron Dugas, 6, with a class project. Stovall, of Patterson, has been a foster grandparent for four years.
