Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 18, 1995 TAG: 9505180025
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: ROBERT FREIS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Three decades later, it's a conservative understatement to say the War On Poverty's approach to society's ills - through bucks and bureaucracies - is out of fashion.
Yet Wendy Hamlin will be among those celebrating New River Community Action's 30th birthday today.
Hamlin, a carpenter's wife and mother of four who lives in the backwoods of Giles County, has used a number of services offered by New River Community Action: Head Start for her preschool children, SHARE for food assistance, payments for housing.
It's a better system than welfare, she says. Community Action's programs are a two-way street, asking that recipients become involved in helping both themselves and others. "That's the way it should be."
Father Harry B. Scott III of Christiansburg, a social activist and a severe critic of 1960s social programs, will also celebrate Community Action's birthday at a bash this afternoon in Radford. Scott has compared Great Society programs to slavery, and called their impact "devastatingly detrimental."
But New River Community Action is different, he says. "It enables people to get on their feet, to be self-sufficient. This is not a government handout program."
A lot of hard rain has fallen over the years on this social services umbrella agency, which serves Montgomery, Pulaski, Giles and Floyd counties and Radford. Funding cutbacks loom on the political horizon, just as they have since the organization's early days. Fifteen years ago, the agency also had some internal financial irregularies that threatened to close its doors. Many programs have come and gone.
Yet from its original two employees and $38,000 budget in 1965, community action has grown tremendously. Today it has around 100 full- and part-time employees, and a budget of $4 million.
"A lot of great things came out the Great Society. Community Action was one of those," says Terry Smusz, the agency's executive director.
Gov. George Allen has not been as laudatory about the agency and the 25 other community action groups around Virginia. Last year his administration proposed a deep funding cut which, if approved, could have drastically curtailed the agencies' services.
The General Assembly disagreed with Allen's assessment, however, and restored funding for community action. But there's no assurance the same battle for revenue won't be refought next year, Smusz says.
In the meanwhile, she says, New River Community Action will stick to its agenda, to help the needy. In 1993-94, the agency assisted 11,555 people get the basics - food, shelter and education - according to agency statistics. Additionally, 2,300 volunteers logged 172,643 hours of work for its programs.
Chartered as a private, nonprofit organization, the New River agency gets almost half of its funding from federal grants. Smusz compares it to other businesses that receive government contracts. "They build bombs or ships. We do social work. We're not an arm of government."
The agency and many of its programs are overseen by citizen advisory councils, with program participants - such as Wendy Hamlin - as active members. "The whole community gets involved. That's what makes it good," she says.
"These are people that think it's worthwhile. And they work at it," said former executive director Tommy Hess.
Program participants are a demographic mix of New River Valley residents: from young to elderly, with a variety of reasons why they've fallen into the social safety net.
"It takes a lot of money to live nowadays. It's hard for a family to achieve self-sufficiency as long as their children are hungry. The elderly can't afford medicine. What we try to do is help people through the immediate crisis. It's necessary for them to be able to go forward," Smusz says.
Plant closings and employment cutbacks have dislocated many New River Valley residents in recent years from financial stability, she says. The lack of good-paying jobs with benefits locally forces many citizens to seek the agency's help. Transportation access to social services in a predominantly rural area is also a major challenge.
The agency's job is made easier by what Smusz calls the area's "amazing" private charity network. "There's a real sense of community here. People look out for each other."
Private charity would be looked to if advocates of cutbacks in government funding successfully curtail social services funding. Smusz predicts they couldn't handle the demands. "A lot of our programs would not be picked up."
"If you didn't have an agency like that, you'd have to create one," Hess said of New River Community Action.
That scenario nearly came true in 1980. Years of what Hess calls "inept" record keeping caught up with the agency. Government auditors were called in, and the agency's services were curtailed for several months.
Hess, who served as executive director from 1979-81, said the agency's financial record keeping was turned over to a newly created private accounting firm, NRC Management Services Corp., an arrangement that continues today.
Of the community action program, Hess says: "Their services have steadily increased. You can see they're thriving because they've maintained the extent of volunteer activity in a big way. Back in my day, it was hard to get people to serve."
Smusz says the agency continues to fine-tune the programs it offers, and to strengthen its relationship with both fellow social service agencies and local governments.
"It would be wonderful if everybody that wanted a good job had a good job. We could be put right out of business." She doesn't foresee that happening, however.
Whatever happens to community action in decades to come, Wendy Hamlin says she's better off than before. "It's been good for me. It's good for my kids. I feel important. I am somebody that can help other people."
by CNB