Kenyetta Dotson, founder of WOW Outreach, a Flint-based community action group, believes that everyone can make a contribution – big or small, of time or talent – to improve distressed Flint neighborhoods. “Every contribution is important,” she says. “However you decide to help and reach out to people right where they are is crucial. Maybe it’s as simple as delivering drinking water to homes, or maybe you make a pot of chili, buy or bake cookies, knit blankets or create handmade cards that offer someone encouragement, it’s all important work.”
For many people, the work they do is a defining factor of their character. But having a job means even more to the most vulnerable of us – it means independence. The Vocational Independence Program (VIP) Work Center, located on Van Slyke Road in Flint, is a place where adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities receive vocational training, help with social and living skills and securing employment through one of many work programs. Max Gelanter has been the Executive Director of the non-profit organization since 1974. The organization itself has been around since 1954, and is funded primarily by the Genesee Health System through Medicaid dollars.
For more than 30 years, Betty Rathfon, LMSW, ACSW, Director of Child Welfare and Home Based Services at Catholic Charities in Flint, has served the needs of children. “My passion is helping children and families,” says Rathfon, who grew up in a nurturing, loving family environment and believes her early learning in the area of family values stems from observing her parents, who were exemplary role models. “My nuclear and extended family members definitely valued children and their well-being,” she says. “Those beliefs and values carried into the profession I chose – social work.”
For over 20 years, Yvonne Penton has worked with young girls who are pregnant and on their own. “I was a teen mom,” she says. “People make bad choices all of the time; but someone helped me, and I let them.” Now, she is CEO and Founder of The House of Esther, a maternity educational care center that offers hope, education, encouragement and support to girls who find themselves in this same situation.
Homelessness can happen to anyone – a person you see in the grocery store, the server at a restaurant where you eat, or a child in school. “There is quite a misconception about what homelessness looks like,” says Lindsay Moore, Network Director of Family Promise of Genesee County. Family Promise is a national non-profit organization that takes a community-based approach to solving the problem of homelessness. In a joint effort, local communities and churches cooperate to help homeless families stay together. Family Promise provides resources, support and training as the families work to become self-reliant.
George F. Grundy II, Afghanistan: Operation Enduring Freedom, service-related disabled veteran and U.S. Marine, never imagined he’d have an address of his own – or be the founder of two businesses. Thanks to Genesee County Habitat for Humanity and General Motors, Grundy lives and works at 608 W. Court Street, where he is in the beginning stages of launching “The Home Advantage Group,” which is comprised of his photography business and is also is the hub of Veterans of Now (VON) – an organization which helps veterans reintegrate into civilian life.
As Flint faces many challenges, hope is its driving force. At Crossover Downtown Outreach Ministry, the goal is to give hope and be respectful and caring to those who cross their threshold, or anyone else who asks them for help.
Dayna Copeland, 25, is learning how to be a better father, husband and communicator thanks to a Genesee Intermediate School District Head Start program called Fathers And Men Engaged (FAME). As a participant in the program, led by Mike Kildee, Head Start Family Engagement Coordinator, and James Patrick, Family Engagement Advocate, Dayna has changed his outlook on parenting.
Exciting things are happening at St. Luke’s N.E.W. Life Center as it continues to live up to its mission statement of providing life skills, education and workplace training, empowering women and men to become self-sufficient. The Center, which opened in 2002, was co-founded by Sister Judy Blake and Sister Carol Weber with the initial mission of helping at-risk women become self-sustainable. “But there were a lot of men out there and they wanted a program too,” says Sister Judy. So, two years ago, N.E.W. Life began offering a program of employment preparation for men.
