More than just a place where women can learn practical skills that can benefit their career, it’s also a safe haven that provides counseling, rides to doctor appointments, GED classes or other job readiness programs.
Graduates were able to find employment, and are grateful for the role Foundation House played in getting them there. “My proudest accomplishment from my time there is becoming who I am now,” says former resident Kayla Jones.
To learn more about Foundation House, watch the above video.
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Tag: single mothers
5 Ways Colleges Help Single Parents Earn Degrees
For roughly a quarter of American college students — 4.8 million of them, to be exact — life is more than just textbooks, beer and all-night philosophical discussions. Instead, their college experience comes with a side of baby books, bottles and the need for extra childcare during finals. It’s a challenging scenario, and for those raising kids without a partner, the time, dedication and money needed to graduate is even more acute. As of 2012, there were 2.1 million single moms enrolled in college, a number that has doubled since 1999. What’s more, only 28 percent of them complete their degrees within six years.
The good news is that some colleges and universities have created innovative programs to help students with kids, particularly single mothers, earn bachelor degrees, which in turn greatly improves their prospects for financial security. Their efforts can be used as a model for other institutions that want to increase the assistance given to the student-parents in their ranks.
FAMILY HOUSING OPTIONS
It’s tremendously easier to get to class when you’re living right on campus. That goes double for those students who have to juggle getting themselves and their children out the door in the mornings. The College of Saint Mary in Omaha, Neb., is just one of a handful of schools that has dedicated a portion of its campus housing to student-parents, opening its $10 million Madonna Hall in 2012 to provide housing for up to 48 single mothers, with free laundry services and play areas for their kids. And parenting students at Misericordia University in Dallas, Penn., who have school-age kids can take advantage of a bus line that runs from the university’s free year-round housing to local elementary and high schools.
CHILDCARE SUPPORT
Though the number of on-campus daycare facilities has decreased to less than half of all public institutions, there are still plenty of options for the student-parent. For example, at Minneapolis’s St. Catherine University, the young children of student-parents in the Access and Success Program can attend a Montessori early-education program, and the university keeps a list of on-campus students available for baby-sitting. St. Catherine also provides access to dedicated lactation rooms, as does the University of Iowa and the University of Washington.
SPECIAL SCHOLARSHIPS AND GRANTS
According to a report by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, 88 percent of single parents in college have incomes at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. For these students, receiving financial assistance is critical. At Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass., about 90 nontraditional students, including single mothers under the age of 25, are enrolled as Frances Perkins Program scholars each year, with 25 of them receiving full-tuition scholarships. Brigham Young University’s Marriott School of Business in Provo, Utah, offers scholarships to single-parent undergraduate and graduate students, both mothers and fathers. Wilson College, an all-girls school in central Pennsylvania, doles out 13 scholarships to single parents with children between the ages of 20 months and 12 years. And in addition to offering grants of up to $8,600 to parenting students, the University of California–Berkeley’s Bear Pantry, which exclusively serves student parents, provides them a two-week food supply along with a $30 gift card for fresh produce, meat or dairy.
KID-FRIENDLY FUN
While financial help and on-campus childcare are invaluable to single-parent students, so too are activities and dedicated spaces to keep their kids happy and occupied. At Misericordia, students’ kids can attend summer and sports camps, learn to swim, and visit the on-campus children’s garden and library. Likewise, Wilson College offers trips to Hershey Park for the hardworking families in its Single Parent Scholar Program. And the Children’s Center at Indiana University Southeast provides structured daycare that combines classroom learning with outdoor recreation, games and storytime.
WRAPAROUND SUPPORT SERVICES
To help parent-students succeed, some schools have fully integrated programs that provide not just childcare and housing, but also counseling services and parenting workshops. The Keys to Degrees Program at Endicott College in Beverly, Mass., offers year-round campus housing, childcare placement and subsidies, scholarship support, tutoring, mentoring and parenting-skills courses. Endicott pioneered the program and, through grants, has expanded it to schools including Portland State, Eastern Michigan, Dillard University and others. And it’s working: Seventy-four percent of Keys to Degrees participants have earned a bachelor’s degree, and 92 percent of graduates since 2013 are now working in a field related to their course of study. In addition, the College of Saint Mary has a dedicated employee that helps moms find pediatricians and, if needed, legal aid. Its Mothers Living & Learning program offers workshops in parenting strategies, and a student group called MOMS (Many Opportunities for Mothering Solo) plans fun-filled events for mothers and their kids.
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The goal of these programs and others is simple: Make life easier on the single parent who wants to study. As Autumn Green, the director of Endicott’s student-parents program, recently put it, “We try to look for students who wouldn’t otherwise have the opportunity to attend college. Students get a lot from the program, but they’re also giving a lot to the program. They’re making an investment in their future. They have skin in the game.”
Homepage photo by by Spencer Platt/Getty Images.
Providing Assistance to “the Forgotten Heroes of America” is Top Priority for This Veteran
Even if you’ve had lots of bad luck come your way, there’s probably someone out there that can top it. Captain Jaspen Boothe of the Army National Guard is one of those people.
While this single mother served in Iraq in August 2005, she lost everything back home in New Orleans to Hurricane Katrina. And the hits didn’t stop there.
The very next month, she was diagnosed with “aggressive head, neck, and throat cancer,” according to her website. As a result, she could no longer be deployed overseas and needed a job to support her young son and to pay for her medical care. She inquired about around about assistance, but was told that there aren’t any organizations dedicated to specifically helping female veterans.
While undergoing radiation treatments for her cancer, Boothe managed to keep a position in the Army Reserves. Once she felt better, she joined the Army National Guard, in which she now serves, based out of Washington, D.C.
Now that she had climbed back on her feet, Boothe wanted to do something to help other female veterans caught in difficult circumstances. So in 2010, she founded the nonprofit Final Salute, Inc., with the goal of housing homeless female veterans. “When Americans think of veterans, they’re only thinking about the men. Women veterans are the forgotten heroes of America. A lot of them have fallen on hard times,” Boothe told Denise Hendricks of HLN Morning Express.
To date, Final Salute, Inc. has helped 200 veteran women and their children, and now runs three transitional homes for them in Alexandria, Virginia; Martinsburg, West Virginia; and Columbus, Ohio. Through its S.A.F.E. program (Savings Assessment and Financial Education), the organization assists women vets achieve financial stability and offers emergency assistance, and through its H.O.M.E. initiative (Housing Outreach Mentorship Encouragement), it offers housing assistance and help with food, diapers, and other essentials.
“We are not a pity party environment. We give you all the tools that you need, but your success in this program is up to you.” Boothe’s tireless efforts, she said, are “the right thing to do as an American and the right thing to do as a soldier.”
MORE: Fighting for the Women Who Fought for Their Country
Are Cars the Key to Single Mothers Achieving Self-Sufficiency?
Molly Cantrell-Kraig knows what it’s like to be a single mom. Twenty-five years ago, she was on welfare and was without reliable transportation to school and work. As a result, she struggled to find a way to get to her college classes. But by accepting rides from friends whenever they were available (even if it meant she had to arrive hours before her classes), she graduated, found a job, and raised three daughters.
If that wasn’t enough accomplishments, she also launched the Women With Drive Foundation, which provides low-income mothers with cars in exchange for participation in activities that will put them on the road to self-sufficiency, such as earning a G.E.D., taking financial literacy courses, and receiving job counseling.
The nonprofit’s website notes, “A coalition of businesses called the Welfare to Work Partnership found that the most significant barrier to employment for their employees was transportation.” In other words, a car can iterally be the key to a single mom finding and keeping a job.
To identify women who are struggling with transportation, Cantrell-Kraig contacts social service organizations . Together, they craft a two-year plan with monthly check-ins to help the woman become self-sufficient and earn a car. “We don’t give out free cars,” Cantrell-Kraig told Emanuella Grinberg of CNN. “We ask for two years of your life.”
MORE: Here’s Why We Should be Investing in Single Moms
Here’s Why We Should Be Investing in Single Moms
What happens if you give a single mom high-quality childcare, higher education and a place to live? A whole lot, actually.
The Jeremiah Program in Minneapolis has helped more than a thousand low-income single mothers and their children build better lives and break the cycle of poverty since it began in 1998. The program provides the mothers with affordable housing at its campus and free preschool for the children so their moms can pursue their education at nearby Minneapolis Community & Technical College. Ninety-five percent of the kids leave the preschool ready for kindergarten, and ninety-percent of the mothers are able to maintain steady employment after they finish the Jeremiah Program. This program works so well because it addresses the problems faced by two generations at once—low-income moms often struggle to complete their educations or hold a job while dealing with the demands of caring for young children, while their kids often receive sub-standard childcare or don’t attend preschool at all, setting back their educations before they even begin.
It costs about $25,000 to see one mom and her children through the program, but an independent analysis found a $4 return to the community for every dollar invested in these families, and a $16 million lifetime benefit for every 100 families elevated from poverty. The Jeremiah Program has expanded to Austin, Texas, Fargo, N.D., and St. Paul, Minn., while cities including Boston, Rochester, Minn. and Dayton, Ohio are working to replicate the program. Amira Masri, who participates in the Jeremiah Program with her daughter Arcadia, told Mary Stegmeir of the Des Moines Register, “My mom was a single mom, and her mom was a single mom. I feel like I’m the (one) that’s going to change our pattern … and end the cycle of poverty here, now with Arcadia.”
This Social Worker Went Above and Beyond to Give a Struggling Single Mom a Fresh Start
It was an unlikely start to a friendship. Mindy Shoestock, 31, a single mother of three, was assigned to see Aleta Monececchi, a 49-year-old social worker in North Adams, Mass., after she’d fought with another parent in an early-education program for low-income families. Life was hard for Shoestock, who had been working the night shift as a supervisor at McDonald’s for $16,000 a year. The Boston Globe even profiled her in a 2011 article about the difficulties of the poor in western Massachusetts. But Monececchi saw past her client’s past mistakes and became her friend and advocate.
Monececchi, who was inspired by Shoestock’s desire to make a better life for her children, started visiting her in her free time, and led her church in donating Christmas toys for Shoestock’s kids. Shoestock wanted to do something in return, so she started volunteering at the church’s spaghetti dinners. Next, Monececchi found Shoestock a temporary job interviewing people applying for help with fuel at the Berkshire Community Action Council. Shoestock is earning just a little more than she did at McDonald’s, but now she can work while her kids are at school, and her holidays are paid—last Thanksgiving was the first time she’d ever experienced a paid holiday from work. “I don’t go home smelling like french fries,” Shoestock told Megan Woolhouse of the Boston Globe. “I feel fantastic, like I’m moving forward.”