ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 25, 1996 TAG: 9612260052
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: HOLIDAY
COLUMN: the good neighbors fund
SOURCE: BETSY BIESENBACH STAFF WRITER
Early one Monday morning in November, Elizabeth Wilson came to the Presbyterian Community Center on Jamison Avenue. She held her car keys in one hand and a copy of the want ads in the other.
She had been laid off from her job on Friday, and was ready to start looking for work. The only thing stopping her was an empty gas tank. There was no money to fill it.
"Not a penny," she said, shaking her head.
Wilson, 26, is a slender, freckle-faced blonde with girl-next-door looks. She is the mother of children aged 7, 3 and 2. She dropped out of school in the ninth grade to take care of her grandfather, who was ill. Although she liked school, she said, she never went back.
Since then, she has never been out of work. She has held a variety of jobs, most of them paying slightly above minimum wage. With food stamps and with help from her family and her children's father, "it was enough," she said, especially after an uncle taught her how to budget her money.
Poverty was something Wilson didn't experience when she was growing up. Her mother left when she was young, and she and her siblings were brought up by her father and her grandparents.
"They always made sure we had whatever we wanted," she said. "I'm trying to do that for my kids."
In October, she quit a job she had held for three years to take the new one. She was lured away by an offer of higher pay, but she never expected to be laid off before Christmas.
Although she planned to file for unemployment benefits, Wilson was sure she'd find something soon - if she could get gas money.
Caseworkers at the Presbyterian Center called Roanoke Area Ministries, hoping to get Wilson a grant from the Emergency Financial Assistance Program, which is supported by The Roanoke Times' Good Neighbors Fund. But they were too late.
It wasn't even noon, but all the money allocated for that day had been given out.
More than $100,000 goes into the Emergency Financial Assistance program annually, and it has to last all year, explained RAM director Wendy Moore. That means that only $500 may be given out each day.
Individual grants have been reduced from $75 to $65 per person so that more people can be helped, Moore said, but when the money is gone, it's gone. It went very quickly the day Wilson applied.
"There are just more people needing help," Moore said.
Luckily, the center's caseworkers were able to find the $15 Wilson needed from other sources, and they sent her on her way. Wilson said she hopes not to be stuck working minimum wage jobs all her life. If she could, she said, she'd like to go back to school and become a nurse and work with women and children.
"It's what I wanted to be when I was a kid," she said.
Tuesday's contributors included:
Haven R. Shuck
Gaynelle Harris, in honor of the chemotherapy nurses at Lewis-Gale Clinic
Joyce Sladon and Agnes Hamilton, in memory of a dear friend, Doris H. Smith
Howard Orville, in memory of Rick Orville
William R. and Geraldine Manning, in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Posey Manning Curtis
William Manning, in memory of Mr. and Mrs. C.C. Bayne and Lewis A. Bayne
R.E. Castle
The faculty and staff of Andrew Lewis Middle School
Nola S. Penn, in memory of Caroline, Lin, Frank and Jeanne Shelor
Fritz and Deborah Oehlschlaeger, in memory of their grandparents
The employees at CWC Enterprises Inc.
In memory of Lisa Garrison and David Harris
Laura Irvin, in honor of her fourth-grade teachers Mr. Saunders, Mrs. Oakey, and Miss Abbot
The Roanoke Times news department in memory of Chris Reddick, Tony Stamus and Kathy Wilson
Kiwanis Club of Roanoke Valley
Beth Craighead, in honor of my co-workers at Merrill Lynch: Cathy Hungate, Marilyn Starkey, Melanie Wilborn, Lisa Alouf and Patty Miller
Frances Shepherd
Jim and Carson Kistner
Banks and Opal Conner
Gene Swartzell
L.H. Sawyer Paving Company Inc.
The Bridge Club Friends, in memory of Shirley Rehor, Louise Cox and Jo Slusher
David, Karen and Chad Skeens, in honor of Floyd Ward, Kermit and Wanda Williams, and Richard and Ada Skeens
Stacy Lam, in memory of Nelson Lam
Rayburn A. Poff
Bruce London
Juvenile and Domestic Relations Judges Joseph P. Bounds, Joseph M. Clarke II, John B. Ferguson and Philip Trompeter, in honor of the clerks in our Roanoke City, Roanoke County and City of Salem courts
Mr. and Mrs. Chuck Crow, in memory of our granddaughter, Lacey Kendall Booth
Marie Arthur, in memory of deceased members of Cloverleaf Seniors Club of Botetourt County
Dennis L. Booze
Mary B. Hartsell, in memory of husband, Gene, and son, Walt
Bob and Betty Turner, in honor of the ministers and staff of Windsor Hills United Methodist Church
NON-ANONYMOUS DONATIONS$2,567.96
ANONYMOUS DONATIONS$220.00
SUBTOTAL$2,787.96
TOTAL AS OF 12/24/96$80,408.62
Checks should be made payable to Good Neighbors Fund and mailed to The Roanoke Times, P.0. Box 1951, Roanoke 24008.
Names - but not amounts of donations - of contributing businesses, individuals or organizations, as well as memorial and honorific designations, will be listed in the newspaper. Those requesting that their names not be used will remain anonymous. If no preference is stated, the donor's name will be listed.
Gifts cannot be earmarked for any particular individual or family. Gifts are tax-deductible.
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