What does $10 buy? A movie ticket, a sandwich with a bag of chips, a six-pack of beer, a ticket to a minor league baseball game?
by Blake Childers
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Blake Childers
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In Rome, a group called Heroes Great and Small holds monthly meetings for children who are victims of sexual abuse. The kids at Heroes are typically between the ages of 5 and 12 with two unifying characteristics: they were abused and they told someone about it.
But the biggest problem Heroes has is getting the children to come. Guardians receive $10 for gasoline when they drop their children off at group meetings, because some of them, at no fault of their own, don’t have the money to get to the church.
Despite being nervous myself, the stories that I heard from a former volunteer drove me to call the director. After an interview and a background check, they paired me with a 6-year-old girl who, for reason of confidentiality, we will call Molly. She walked into the church attached to her mother’s hand like a tree to the earth. With her other hand, she buried her face into her Hello Kitty jacket.
Regardless of her initial defensiveness, getting Molly to talk proved to be the easiest thing I did all morning. She talked about her favorite game to play with her siblings. She talked about how she wanted to be a “horse rider” when she grew up. She talked about wanting to be a butterfly during the puppet show. She talked to the other kids. She talked to the other volunteers. She talked and played like any kid might. Molly is one of the strongest and most heroic individuals I know; I am blessed to know her.
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The author, fourth from right, at a ‘Heroes Great and Small’ event in 2013.
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Heroes Great and Small supports these children in their battles whether these battles are in the courtroom, their homes, their schools or within themselves. People who go through Heroes reflect on the program years later as an integral part of their healing process. The organization is a vital resource to the community, but $10 is not going to fix the problem. Without adequate access to resources that allow for a better standard of living, missing Heroes would be just one of many complications these individuals have to face.
“Guardians receive $10 for gasoline when they drop their children off at group meetings, because some of them, at no fault of their own, don’t have the money to get to the church.”
Resources are often hard to come by for many in Rome. At the church where we hold Heroes, one side of the highway has a median household income of about $56,000, but across the same street that number drops to $25,000, greater than a fifty percent decrease. This problem exists in many areas of Floyd County and in the rest of the country. Fifty feet of asphalt slicing a median household income in half is a dangerous problem to ignore. It is even more dangerous to ignore the people like Molly that this issue affects.
My argument is not for politicians to shovel cash into the poorest parts of the community, nor is it for people to protest in the streets. These problems are products of years of societal shortcomings, and won’t be fixed overnight, or maybe ever
I want people to think about kids like Molly the next time they frivolously spend cash on materialistic garbage. I want people to realize that the blessings they have put them in a position to make people smile. I want people to actually put down their phone, turn off the television and go serve someone in the community. I want people to share this story instead of what Kim Kardashian wore at the Grammy’s. I want things to change, and it starts with action. And maybe only $10.