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PAGE 2—The Georgia Bulletin, January 8,1981
- The Family In Action -
Reaching Out To Children
BY THEA JARVIS
The holidays are over.
Throughout the state, parents resume their daily grind,
and children return, however reluctantly, to the duties of
the schoolroom.
But what happens to the children when school is over
and parents are still at work?
For many, the familiar white and red minibus makes its
pickup at the neighborhood school, depositing the
children at a nearby day care facility. There, strangers,
more or less well-intentioned, take responsibility for
their well-being for the next several hours.
For others, perhaps the older children, an empty house
stands waiting at the end of the school day, with a t.v. for
company and maybe some homework to do before dinner
is begun.
The problem of caring for children while parents work
to make ends meet is a double-edged sword with no easy
solutions. In a no-win situation, the child is frequently
caught in the middle.
It is this child whom St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church
in Tucker reaches out to in its after-school program.
“Our pastor, Dr. Joe Sandifer, was looking for a way to
use our facilities that would somehow meet a community
need,” says Mildred Wilson, St. Andrew’s Director of
Children’s Work who is in charge of the program.
“He became aware of elementary school children going
home without anyone there to supervise them.”
What evolved from this need was an after-school
alternative to day care and empty houses, using church
property which, during that time slot, would otherwise go
unused.
“Our program is open to first through sixth graders and
includes outdoor exercise, games, art activities, and
tutoring,” continues Mrs. Wilson, noting that the program
is offered at a cost slightly below the going day care rate.
A typical winter’s day at St. Andrew’s finds a small but
energetic group of youngsters romping in a neat,
well-equipped playground complete with sandbox, swings,
climbing gym, slide, and playhouse.
Marlene Warren, director of the afternoon activities,
and her assistant, Mercer theology graduate Chris Hicklin,
place themselves squarely in the middle of their young
charges, enjoying the play with the children.
Following their time outdoors, which has been
preceded by a nutritious snack, the children follow
Marlene and Chris inside for some blind-man’s bluff, quiet
table games, reading, and art in bright, spacious
surroundings - two oversized classrooms that offer a ready
welcome to the children.
Mrs. Warren, who holds a masters degree in early
childhood education, has designed the program with a
focus on older children. It is this age group which is
frequently neglected in the day care system.
“Traditional day care puts all ages together and tends
to generalize them as ‘children’” observes Marlene. “Here,
we are able to give our attention to the older child, from
six to twelve years. We don’t have to concentrate on
infants and toddlers.”
“When the children first started coming,” she
continues, “they asked if they could watch t.v. - that was
what they usually did in their day care programs when
they weren’t playing with the nursery level toys. They
haven’t asked for it since.”
It is easy to see why.
Rodney, a first grader, is too busy playing chess with
the set he received for Hannukah. Mark, the backgammon
champion of the group, is very concerned with keeping his
title. Sisters Nina and Sonya are deep in a game of “Marco
Polo.” And Tracy has developed a consuming interest in
“bird seed,” a wonderful blend of M&M’s, peanuts, and
raisins frequently offered as an afternoon treat.
For the future, St. Andrew’s hopes to increase its
after-school enrollment, running the program through the
nine month school year and observing county holidays.
For the present, the church sustains its pioneer status
in the area of day care alternatives, winning some young
hearts along the way.
Family Issues Face Reagan
WASHINGTON (NC) - As the administration of
Ronald Reagan prepares to take office the question of the
family and how the new government should deal with
issues that affect it has become one of the many
transition-period skirmishes taking place in Washington.
The debate over how the new administration should
address family policy has been going on since even before
the Nov. 4 election. It pits groups which fought hard to
short circuit last year’s White House Conference on
Families against other organizations, including some
church organizations, which think government needs to
make a concerted effort to meet the needs of the modern
family.
At the center of the debate is the federal Office for
Families, a little-known and still infant agency tucked
away within the Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS). President Carter announced formation of
the office with much fanfare before 300 delegates at the
annual meeting of the National Conference of Catholic
Charities in 1979.
That, though, was before the White House Conference
on families became so controversial. Reagan questioned
the work of the conference during his campaign for the
presidency and his Family Policy Advisory Board urged
that the Office for Families be closed and that Reagan
appoint a family policy czar, similar to the federal energy
czar appointed during the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo, to
oversee all federal activity involving families.
But officials at both Catholic. Charities and the U.S.
Catholic Conference think the Office for Families should
not be terminated. “It would be a tragedy to abolish the
one place where we’ve just begun to evaluate the effect of
government policy on families,” said Mathew Ahmann,
Catholic Charities associate director for governmental
relations.
The debate over the existence of the office has its roots
in the debate that took place over the White House
Conference on Families itself. On the one side are those
who say the problem with families is that government has
intervened too much in family affairs - providing
contraceptives to teen-agers against their'parents wishes,
for example - and that an Office for Families and the
White House Conference on Families can only exacerbate
the situation.
On the other side are those who would argue that
government economic supports such as Social Security,
Medicaid and mortgage tax deductions have helped ease
the strains on today’s family. A small government office
concerned with family life, the argument continues, could
monitor government’s effect on families, recommending
new ideas that might further aid families and calling for
abandonment of programs which create new strains on
family life.
Though the debate outside the transition goes on, there
are indications that an actual decision on the office’s fate
may be weeks or months away.
MIRACLE BABY - Laris Calleja of Monroe,
Wash., gently holds her premature baby daughter.
The baby may be the first ever born to a mother
paralyzed from botulism during her first three
months of pregnancy. The Callejas are members
of St. Mary of the Valley parish in Monroe.
Priests Sponsor Young Cuban Refugees
MANITOWOC, Wis. (NC) - The young man lay
sprawled on the living room floor staring in wide-eyed
wonder at the brightly lighted Christmas tree.
“Beautiful,” he said over and over again.
For William Villega, 23, almost everything about
America is beautiful - a dream come true.
Villega is one of three young Cuban refugees living
with priest sponsors in Manitowoc, Wis., since October.
His sponsor is Father Philip Hoffmann of St. Paul parish.
Andres Martinez, 17, makes his home with Father Ted
Hendricks of St. Boniface parish. Ramon Onate, 21,
resides at Sacred Heart parish rectory with Father William
Zimmer, pastor, and Father Steve Modde, Silver Lake
College chaplain.
It took Father Hoffmann only a few days to decide to
sponsor Villega after a friend who had worked at Fort
McCoy during the summer told him the young man was
deserving of sponsorship.
For Villega, his best experience to date is the family he
has now, a family which includes not only the priest but
also his 61-year-old housekeeper and Father Hoffmann’s
17-year-old foster son, Kevin.
Onate came to Sacred Heart rectory after his' sponsor
could not house him.
He was staying at a hotel, the money was running out
and he was desperate. “He was adjusting. We got to be
friends and were comfortable with each other,” Father
Zimmer said about his decision to sponsor Onate.
For Father Hendricks it was a series of events which
helped him decide, including the arrival in the mail of a
statue of St. Joseph and a Gospel which talked about, “I
was homeless and you did or did not take me in .. .
“I couldn’t find a footnote that excused me because I
was a priest,” he said.
But the incident which Father Hendricks will
remember longest is the emotional meeting at a restaurant
near the fort with a young woman whose mother was
killed by a refugee.
As he and Martinez prepared to leave, the woman told
him, “Father, I know these kids need a chance. We just
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picked the wrong one.”
It took a lot of courage for her to say that, he said,
adding, “If it had been my mother ... I don’t think I
would have been able to say that.”
Learning English is the top priority for the refugees.
The young men have been welcomed into the priests’
families and people in the three parishes, to a large extent,
have been very supportive, the priests said.
“This is what parish is all about,” Father Hoffmann
said.
He also said there are many other priestrs living in
large, almost empty rectories who could do a beautiful job
with this adult-to-adult type sponsorship.
Family Life
Rep. Named
WASHINGTON (NC) - Father Thomas F. Lynch,
family life and pro-life director of the Diocese of
Bridgeport, Conn., has been named family life
representative in the U.S. Catholic Conference
Department of Education.
As family life representative, Father Lynch, 37, will
coordinate all efforts in the USCC education department
related to family ministry and, according to USCC
officials, strive to promote a coherent vision of family
ministry within the larger educational and pastoral
mission of the church.
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DAY CARE ALTERNATIVE - Marlene
Warren, head of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian
Church after-school program, takes time out at
the playground with three of her young friends.
Families: Focus
Of Ministry
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (NC) - “Families today have a
great feeling of inferiority,” of not being able to cope
with pressures in society, Father William Peters told
priests at a parish family ministry program in Louisville.
We need to understand where people in the parish are
and what their spirituality is, said Father Peters, family
life director in the Altoona-Johnstown, Pa., Diocese.
There is loneliness and depression, “many families are
scared” and there is a “sense of doom.”
Having seen many families break up because of divorce
and separation and other family life problems, Father
Peters said, families are asking themselves, “When is it
going to hit us?”
Father Peters noted that the aim of the U.S. bishops
pastoral plan for family ministry is “to make us more
aware of families and where they are at.”
Other speakers at the program suggested different ways
of helping families.
Thomas McGuiness of Family Ministry Associates,
Long Beach, Calif., stressed the place of lay people in
ministering to individuals and families. “Family ministry
is rather simple. There are many ministry opportunities
that exist in our own midst.” As examples he noted two
individuals his family encountered - a lonely woman who
just wanted someone to be with and a widower who
wanted to talk to someone about his wife’s death.
A Louisville couple, Sue and Chic Davis, urged parishes
to hold “once a month family nights” to allow individuals
to come together.
Archbishop Thomas J. McDonough of Louisville told
priests to “be as dose as you possibly can” to
parishioners.
“I believe in a ministry of the front door,” in which
priests greet people in front of church, the archbishop
said. “I think it’s good to get out and mingle with
people.”
Archbishop McDonough also urged priests to “be close
to your own immediate family” and to remain close to
one another in the “family of priests.”
Father Peters recommended different ways to
implement the bishops’ pastoral plan on family ministry.
He said “ordinary things” can be done in a parish to make
people “feel they belong” and that “they are not
alienated.”
“We need to develop traditions in the parish,”
regardless of what particular activity, to give people a
sense of identity with the parish, he noted. “People are
looking for something they can hang on to.”
He also urged awareness of the “many styles of
families,” such as the one-parent family that may feel
uneasy when the parish makes an announcement that
“both parents” are invited to the church for a certain
program.
ESSAY WINNERS IN ATHENS - Knights of
Columbus Council 6514 in Athens recently
sponsored an essay contest for St. Joseph’s
elementary school children with a “Spirit of
Christmas’’ theme. Pictured above are Grand
Knight John Tillitski, Sr. Helen Dolores, I.H.M.,
principal of St. Joseph's, and Sr. Edmunda,
I.H.M. with winning essayists.
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