More teachers and health care workers, more mental health services, improved literacy and affordable housing options are among the urgent community needs that a group of community leaders announced Friday.
Gathered in the King Island Association or Realtors Classroom on Gloucester Street in Brunswick, they spoke to the United Way Community Investment Committee about what they see as challenges facing Greene, McIntosh and Camden counties. The idea is to allow committee members to hear directly from those working to overcome these challenges so the committee can make informed decisions about where to invest the money raised at the annual United Way fundraiser.
“It’s important that they listen to the community because this money is raised in and for the community,” Janelle Harvey said.
According to its website, the United Way of Coastal Georgia works with nonprofit organizations to support projects and programs designed to advance the common good of the community.
“We want to make sure we’re making the most impactful investments possible,” said Justin Callaway, president and CEO of the United Way of Coastal Georgia.
Capt. Michael Robinson of the Greene County Police Department recommends investing in youth programs. When young people have more things to do, they are less likely to join a gang or a life of crime.
“We have to start engaging with the school system more effectively, more frequently, and in a way that hopefully has a deterrent effect,” Robinson said.
The department and school system recently launched the GREAT program, Gang Resistance Education Activity Training. The program works with students as early as elementary school and with middle school students in hopes of preventing them from joining gangs.
“We can’t do it in just one year,” Robinson said. “It has to be long-term.”
Greene County Schools Superintendent Scott Spence said staff in all areas of the school system are facing urgent needs. Support staff and teachers are hard to find and this is a national problem.
“We have to do something to change this trend,” Spencer said.
According to a study by the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia, the number one reason people leave teaching is because of the challenges of dealing with parents and bureaucratic red tape.
McIntosh County Schools Superintendent Jim Pulos echoed Spence, adding that mental health and parental apathy are also challenges.
But literacy is the apex of PLP’s pyramid of importance. That’s why McIntosh’s school system is addressing this issue through McIntosh Reads, a program that promotes literacy for young children and literacy for parents.
“The end of third grade is the transition between learning to read and learning to read,” Prowse said. “We’ve got to get better at this, and it’s a big problem that we have to address as a community.”
Tres Hamilton, CEO of the Community Action Authority of Coastal Georgia, said she has seen the same difficulty recruiting and retaining teachers in the Early Head Start and Head Start preschool programs her organization operates. She wants people to know that her staff on these programs are professional teachers, not nannies.
She also said that getting children involved in a variety of extra-curricular activities early on can have a positive impact on them later in life.
Parental engagement, literacy and discovery activities can affect a person’s mental health, which is an issue that Coastal Community Health CEO Dr. Kavanaugh Chandler said needs to be addressed, along with educating people about how and where they can access healthcare and work at work Be professional in your job search. Just like in education, finding qualified people to work in healthcare remains challenging.
Greg Gann, vice president and administrator for Southeast Georgia Health System’s Camden campus, sees the same problem as Chandler. Finding nurses and other staff remains a problem. The hospital has partnered with Georgia Coastal College and Coastal Pines Technical College to provide in-house training, but workforce challenges remain.
Mental health services in particular needed to be addressed, with St Mary’s experiencing an increasing number of problems every day, which put additional pressure on the limited staff.
Hamilton also spoke about the difficulty for families in coastal Georgia to find affordable housing. Rents have doubled and even tripled in some cases over the past few years, and people are finding it harder than ever to stay at home, she said.
“That’s one of the most important things we’re seeing, housing affordability, it’s a basic need that everybody has,” Hamilton said. “Now we have families who absolutely cannot afford where they live.”
She noted that there is no transitional housing in Greene County for families to get back on their feet.
Whatever problems arise, relationships are critical to overcoming them, Chandler said.
“The problems expressed by this group are our problems,” Chandler said. “It’s challenging and difficult, but I think ongoing relationships and interactions of this nature allow us to leverage the resources we have.”
Callaway said the group’s discussions will be used to inform the community investment committee’s recommendations on how to use the money raised by United Way.
