Newsletter: December 2007
KATHLEEN RAGSDALE, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
How a Child-Centered Health & Welfare Grassroots Organization Came into Being By Kathleen Ragsdale
The November SMA column addressed the plight of the world’s children, many of whom are forcibly conscripted into violent confl icts or sexual traffi cking, or become abandoned “street children” or refugees. The column highlighted the SMA policy statement prepared by the Council on Infant and Child Health & Welfare (CICH), which discussed US failure to ratify the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Indeed, among 194 countries, only the US and Somalia have failed to ratify the convention. The CICH policy statement asked the compelling question, “Can we do anything to change the situation?” This question resonated with me at a very personal level, as I have been seeking out volunteer opportunities after moving to Starkville, Mississippi, this summer to join the faculty of Mississippi State University.
In September, I learned about a communitybased organization in Starkville called “52 MOMS (Mothers on a Mission to Serve).” This group is Alison Buehler’s grassroots answer to the CICH question, “can we do anything to change the situation?” As Buehler told me recently, “The idea for 52 MOMS first started when several friends and I saw the film, Invisible Children, about child soldiers in Uganda. Initially, we joined with a group of Starkville High School students to raise money to rebuild a school in Uganda. After this project was completed, our group wanted to do more for the worlds’ children. We thought, ‘if you could get just 52 people to cover a childcentered project for one week each, it would be covered for a whole year’—and that become the impetus for 52 MOMS.” As Buehler makes clear, “ ‘mom’ is conceptualized loosely within 52 MOMS, as it includes all individuals who want to volunteer on child-centered projects in their communities.”
Buehler’s friends contacted others in their social networks and organized a larger meeting of like-minded individuals. The group chose a community-based project to benefit underserved children in northeastern Mississippi. As a result, 52 MOMS currently works with the Sally Kate Winters Memorial Children’s Home for abused and neglected children in West Point, Mississippi, that, eventually, they want to expand the scope of 52 MOMS to work on childcentered projects across Mississippi, the US and abroad. Known locally as the Sally Kate Shelter, the home serves 13 counties and provides emergency shelter for children newborn–17 years of age who are experiencing a family crisis, abuse, neglect or who may be in danger of exploitation. Buehler says that, “The idea was to spend as much of your week as you could with the children at the Sally Kate Shelter; to take one week away from your children to hold the world’s children.”
According to Buehler, the idea behind 52 MOMS is that:“[C]hildren are a unifying cause. You don’t have to share the same religion, ethnicity, politics or culture to value all children’s needs for food, love, shelter and access to health care, and a healthy environment. We decided that we wanted to center 52 MOMS mission around ‘child honoring’— the concept that the needs of all children are important and should dictate our priorities. We believe this concept can unify people across cultures, religions, political affiliations, gender and race/ethnicity. If we can agree that all children’s needs are important, we can find a lot in common … .” This commanlity could go a long way toward improving children’s health and welfare. As a grassroots organization, 52 MOMS originally met in the homes of its members, but has attracted so many new members that they will need a larger venue. At each meeting, members of 52 MOMS hear about ongoing work at the Sally Kate Shelter as well as tackle one childcentered issue, such as childhood asthma, improved childcare or children who are victims of war.
As a new member of 52 MOMS, I will begin my volunteer work at the Sally Kate Shelter in October. I would like to extend an invitation to other SMA members involved in a healthrelated grassroots organization to share their experiences, insights, successes—and, yes, even their failures—in upcoming SMA columns.
A founding member of 52 MOMS, Alison Buehler received the 2007 Community Service Award presented by the Mississippi State University President’s Commission on the Status of Women. More info on 52 MOMS is available at: www.1-800-volunteer.org/1800Vol/lower-mississippi-delta-service-corp/OpenAb outOrganizationAction.do?organizationId=242898.
Please send contributions to the SMA Contributing Editor, Kathleen Ragsdale (kathleen.ragsdale@ssrc.
msstate.edu)