Women in Community Service

Introduction
As one of the most impoverished cities in Georgia, Athens has a need for influential community service organizations. Being a college town, Athens has a unique access to a varied community with which to support many organizations. There are numerous non-profit organizations that exist to uplift the women living in Athens from the perils of poverty, disease, abuse, and neglect. Many of these non-profits are centered around and headed by women. Our goal as researchers is to understand how these women have overcome oppression, why they chose to give back to the community, and how they are empowering the women of Athens.

Purpose
Community service impacts Athens-Clarke County in a positive and caring way that helps empower the individual reaching for help. Since Athens is one of the most impoverished cities in the United States, this inspired our group to research more about the advantages of community service in Athens, and discover the perspectives of three women who direct these nonprofit organizations. The purpose of our research is to discover how women directly dedicate their lives to help other women and their families be safe, healthy, and successful in Athens and surrounding communities. By helping the women in our community, the women in these organizations are directly impacting lives and fostering the empowerment of women. As a group we want to understand how these three women’s hard work has not only helped women survive and overcome systematic oppression in our society, but how and why they chose to work in this field. We can then look at each individual situation and discover how these women have placed other women’s needs before their own to make a difference in our community. In terms of the design, we plan to interview one influential person from each of the three nonprofit organizations that we chose to research. These organizations include Project Safe, The Athens Area Homeless Shelter, and Oasis Católico Santa Rafaela. These organizations are oriented to help women and their families. From Project Safe, an organization that works to end violence against women through prevention and educational programs, we plan to interview Ms. Stacy Sampson. who is a support group facilitator. From Oasis Católico Santa Rafaela, a Catholic organization that works to empower Spanish-speaking immigrants through language education and social services, we plan to interview Sister Margarita. Athens Area Homeless Shelter’s Pattie Freedman-Lynde has agreed to provide us with an insightful interview.

Interviews

Sister Margarita

Oasis Católico Santa Rafaela

Sister Margarita was interviewed November 12, 2009 at Oasis Católico Santa Rafaela community center. Along with two of her sisters, Sister Margarita Martin desired to serve the Mexican families residing in Athens. As a result, these women founded and organized Oasis Católico Santa Rafaela, a community service organization dedicated to improving women’s living environments and helping with language acquisition for minorities. In 2002, Sister Margarita, Marietta, and Angela moved into a trailer in Pinewood Estates North which had a large majority of Mexican immigrants. The women volunteers that they have stay in their trailer and minister with them to the people of the mobile home park and community. Seven years later these women are focusing on activities such as bringing the children of the community together for religious programs, helping families in need of various physical, spiritual, and emotional support, assist pregnant women living in the trailer park, and teach the residents English. Oasis Católico Santa Rafaela gives women the opportunity to work with other women for other women. No matter the difficulties they are facing, the women who work there and the individuals they assist know that they have a place to go where they do not have to be afraid and their voice can be heard. Sister Margarita acknowledges that all women are incredibly alike. She claims, “We don’t know that until we come together.” The best way to realize that is by helping each other when we most need it. “When women help other women and their families, women are being empowered so they can do the same thing unto others.” Men play a limited role within the Oasis Católico Santa Rafaela since all the volunteers and sisters are women. “We are women so we know what women need, and we can help find solutions for their needs.” She left us with the idea of following your heart into community service. The benefits of helping others drastically outweigh the losses of participation. “Not only will they be helping others, but they will receive something much more that only they will feel.”

♥ Children of Oasis Católico Santa Rafaela ♥

Stacy Sampson
Project Safe

Mrs. Stacy Sampson is a very much involved woman here in Athens. She works for Project Safe, a non-profit organization centered around the help for women and children in domestic violent circumstances. Mrs. Sampson works as a crisis counselor and support group facilitator; she believes it is so important for her to help her fellow “sisters” in their time of need. She believes no woman should feel threatened in their home. Rather they should feel safe, confident, loved and respected while with their families and spouses. The most important thing Mrs. Sampson wanted everyone to know was that Project Safe is not only a shelter, but they have outreach programs, provide legal help and support, their an advocacy for teaching the community about domestic violence, etcetera. This organization gives a voice to women who normally would not have one merely because its “safety nest” for what they call “survivors” not victims. She expresses how the mind set of these women usually is isolation which due to their abusers manipulations they don't normally have a voice. She feels she is directly dedicating her life to help these women overcome obstacles they face day to day from abusers. Mrs. Sampson believes the best thing about her job is when she sees the women she has helped changed their whole lives around. Some women walk in with low self-esteem and fear, but those whom take advantages of their services have drastic changes. She stated they merely 'plant seeds' with the women so they can grow into totally new women. Some women lose weight, they no longer are depressed and tired, they have smiles on their faces, in essence they become a new and improved woman. We believe Mrs. Stacy Sampson is empowering women and impacting their lives, but it is done in a subconscious way because she cares so much for her “sisters” that it is her obligation to help women survive and overcome oppression, rather than it just being a job or occupation. As Mrs. Sampson, “I love and enjoy what I do for the simple fact I am helping someone survive.”

Patty Freedman-Lynde

Athens Area Homeless Shelter

Pattie Freeman-Lynde, the director of the Athens Area Homeless Shelter, demonstrates the characteristics of a strong-minded woman in a leadership position in a community service organization. Not only does she reside over the daily activities of the shelter, but she also coordinates with outside influences, such as the board of directors, treasury, and local donators. As we conducted our interview, we quickly found out that Pattie had a very long and checkered history of involvement in community service. As she matured as woman, this tradition morphed into a habit and ultimately into a career of non-profit, philanthropic work. Although finding the balance between her love for social work and her duty as a mother was incredibly challenging, Pattie found positive female role models throughout her career that proved working at home and in the office was certainly a possibility. Pattie now finds herself directing one of the largest non-profit organizations in the Athens area, an accomplishment that is surely a direct result of her activism and education. At the shelter, Pattie and her colleagues help the women who are staying at the facility find jobs and appropriately save their income so that in the long-run they will be able to live independently and provide a stable environment for their children. However, more importantly, her organization provides a sense of self-determination and security for these women who have been faced with failure and oppression the majority of their lives. This accomplishment in itself is noble and incomparable; as Pattie said herself, “I’m not going to be a woman in the history books, but the work I do helps the local community, my family, and enriches my own life. Because of this, my heart will always be in non-profits.”

♥ Frannie and Julianne at the Athens ♥

Area Homeless Shelter

Conclusion

After interviewing women in administrative positions at three community service organizations in the Athens area, our group got a true sense for the importance of non-profit work in women’s lives. Oasis Catolico, Project Safe, and the Athens Area Homeless Shelter are organizations that give a voice to women who would normally not have one. The various women who arrive at these shelters find themselves trapped by the oppressive barriers of immigration, domestic violence, and homelessness. Among the women who help run the organizations, we found several common threads that connect the three. The women who we interviewed were most proud of the fact that they were empowering other women, whether through education, therapy, or spiritual guidance. All three women had a history with community service, whether brief or long, and felt some sort of gravitational force pulling them to work with non-profit organizations. Most importantly, Pattie, Stacy, and Sister Margarita all enjoy what they do, and find that they reap the benefits of their work just as much as the women they help to empower. Unlike any other occupation they have held, the three women experience a deeper sense of satisfaction and achievement working with non-profits, a feeling they hope to instill in the women they work with.

Group Reflection
From our interviews with Stacy, Pattie, and Sister Margarita, our group learned that by helping the women in our local community in any way possible, we not only empower the women we assist, but also enrich our own lives. The three organizations the women represent provide a safe-haven for women to voice their grief, happiness, worries, achievements, goals, and dreams. Because of various forms of oppression, these women were never given such a stage, which is an incredibly disheartening and eye-opening reality. We learned that it was vital to understand that they are in fact survivors capable of a progressive future beyond their oppressive past, rather than victims with little hope and potential. We also discovered that the patriarchal and chauvinistic society we live in crosses racial and economic barriers, affecting all women in various ways. It is not until we work together as women, despite these differences, will we be able to overcome the barriers that our gender faces on a daily basis. Additionally, all three organizations lacked the presence of men, whether as administrators or attendants. We asked Stacy, Pattie, and Sister Margarita separately about this fact and we were left with a unanimous response: a man’s presence seemed to defeat the purpose of the healing process since the majority of the women who came to them looking for help found themselves in their particular position in society because of men. Although we understand and sympathize with this strategy, we must ask ourselves how we are ever going to overcome these issues without the involvement of men. We believe that both sides of the gender spectrum must take responsibility for the perpetuated system of oppression in our society otherwise change will be impossible.

Group 7 Members:
Glynneisha Bellamy, Frannie Eaton,
Jess Howard, Kyla Linde,
Charlotte May, & Julianne Williams