NEWS
Augusta women's shelter helping to bring down child poverty rate
Melissa Tune
News 12 at 11 o'clock, November 18, 2009
AUGUSTA---New U.S. census data shows childhood poverty is expanding in Georgia.
Data released today shows up to 67 percent of children under age 18 in 7 Georgia counties were living in poverty in 2008. The data also shows up to 20 percent of children under 18 lived in poverty statewide in 2008. But there's a local shelter that's committed to bringing those numbers down.
44 percent of children in the South -- 12.2 million -- live in low-income families, which means 1 in every 5 children. The Garden City Rescue Mission, based in Augusta, works with families all over the CSRA. On any given night, you'll find a good meal and good spirits there. It's the place that many women and children turn to when they have nowhere else to go.
"There are a lot of things that we could complain about that really are very small in comparison to what others are having to deal with," says Yolanda Wright.
Wright is a member of the Oakey Grove Baptist Church in Evans. Tonight, "Women of Promise", a group within the church, helped out at the shelter.
Shelter director and owner Suzie Greene appreciates their commitment. Her commitment to helping others is the reason she and her son started the shelter.
"I wanted to do something that would make a difference in them," says Greene. "Because if we don't make a difference,somehow or other, then those kids are going to wind up just like their moms -- in poverty."
And that's something Greene wants to prevent. In many cases, a child who grows up in poverty, becomes an adult in poverty. Greene has beds, clothing and meals, but she also offers educational and back-to-work programs.
"If we do something to help the moms, then maybe those children are not going to be there, you know, we can turn their life around or otherwise the children are going to fall in the mom's footsteps."
Greene showed News 12 her wall filled with pictures of children. "God's flowers", she calls them. It's filled with the faces of children who have stayed at her shelter, most of them because their mothers were poor.
"A poverty-stricken child, when you look at them, they don't have a happy smile on their face. They just kind of have a forelorn look that you know they don't know where they are, they don't know where they belong," says Greene. "Maybe they haven't had anywhere to stay, maybe they've been sleeping on the street maybe in a car, they haven't had as much to eat."
The Oakey Grove Baptist Church pastor's wife Yolanda Wright and "The Women of Promise" group and their children say they are fortunate and know it.
"(Helping out here is) also a blessing to us as well because we get to put our own lives in perspective," says Wright. "We realize how selfish we are and how sometimes weren't not as grateful as we need to be."
Garden City Rescue Mission is always looking for volunteers to help and also is always taking donations. For more information on how you can help stop poverty in children, go to their website: www.gardencityrescuemission.com.
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