What You Missed Last Week!
The club honored two academic students of the month last week. From Thomasville High School we had Ella Millere and from Thomas County Central High School, we had Macey Kirkendoll. Both are planning to continue their education after graduating from high school. Ella plans to attend the University of Virginia and I believe Macey plans on attending Fordham University.
Rotarian Wallace Goodman had back surgery last Wednesday. As he recovers, he and Debbie are in need our call, prayers and thoughts.
The program last week was Doctor Chip Bragg. He is researching the history of Archbold Hospital for a book celebrating their upcoming centennial. Doctor Bragg shared several interesting stories from his research. One was how the hospital addressed the nursing shortage it experienced. The solution was to open two nursing schools, one for black students and another for white students. This proved to be so challenging that it was decided to have one school for both groups.
Another bit of information Doctor Bragg shared with the club was the fact that Thomasville had a well-established hospital prior to Archbold. This was the City Hospital. It was fully accredited and had state of the art equipment. The only problem with the hospital was it’s size. It only had forty beds. Eventually the medical staff at City Hospital would become the medical staff of Archbold Hospital.
It is not possible to list here all that Doctor Bragg covered in his talk last week. He is most thankful for the work of Emily Remington Jerger. Ms. Jerger did extensive research on Archbold when she did the 50th anniversary of the hospital. According to Doctor Bragg, her organized notes have been a real blessing, saving him hours of research time.
This Week's Program
Due to the generosity of an anonymous and very generous donor, we are excited to announce the launch of our Family PLUS Program.
The Family PLUS Initiative develops youth by strengthening families within the Boys & Girls Club organization. Seeking to empower and strengthen adults in their familial roles, Family PLUS builds on the premise that broad-based programming for parents and caregivers will enhance family stability, develop caregiver competencies and promote the healthy development of children.
We feel as though the five components listed below are essential to the current needs of the families that we serve.
• Kinship Care – This component provides knowledge and resources to extended family members (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, foster parents, etc.) who have assumed the role of primary caregiver.
• Father Involvement – Clubs provide support and promotion through programs, activities, training and services to help increase the positive involvement of fathers in the lives of their children.
• Economic Opportunity – Focusing on empowering families, the economic opportunity component helps families find and keep jobs, increase earnings, build savings and establish credit.
• Mentoring – Youth mentoring is the process of matching mentors with young people who need or want a caring, responsible adult in their lives. Adult mentors are usually unrelated to the child or teen and work as volunteers.
• One-Stop-Shop – This is a model that combines resources and information for multiple health and human services from a single location. Our families, often are not always fully aware of the vast number of resources that are available in the community and how to access those resources. Parents often get frustrated having to go to multiple locations and speak to multiple people in an attempt to access services and resources. Therefore, it is our goal to bring information and a level of awareness of the many local resources and services that are available under one roof. Resources that will address, but not be limited to, the following commons needs that our families challenged by poverty often need include:
- Public Assistance (Food stamps, etc.)
- Food Assistance (Food bank & other meal related resources)
- Affordable/quality child care
- Employment
- Affordable/quality housing
- Mental health
- Health care assistance
- COVID-19 related wellness and nutrition education (preventing/addressing underlying health issues)
- Legal assistance
We are excited to have Nate Tyler on board to lead our Family PLUS Program. Nate is a fairly recent retiree from the City of Thomasville and brings a wealth of knowledge and resources to the program.
