In 2006, LaVern McNeese initiated the Springfield chapter of Priscilla’s Lost and Found, a faith-based mentoring program for women that serves just six
other cities in the nation. Since then, she said, she’s seen so many women “who just don’t know what to do.”
These women suffer from alcohol abuse, drug use, depression — and whatever the problem, McNeese and the organization’s volunteers believe it’s their calling to help them get on the right track. They’re currently helping four local women and are looking for additional mentors so
they can help more.
“We pair Christian women with those women who are sort of lost, who are trying to
make a transition, trying to improve their lives,” McNeese said. “We try to step in and help them by walking along side of them.”
Last week McNeese joined three other representatives from Springfield social
service agencies that primarily serve women for a panel discussion in honor of
International Women’s Day, celebrated annually on March 8. Sponsored by Pax Christi Springfield and
The Mary Wood Branch of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, the panel focused on how helping
women locally can help all women globally.
Veronica Espina, an adjunct Spanish professor at the University of
Illinois-Springfield, also joined the panel and kicked off the presentation by
offering her own perspective as a Chilean native. When she first moved to
Springfield, Espina said, she’d never heard of feminism or women’s studies. She learned quickly from mentors at the UIS Women’s Center and began bringing awareness to the link between women’s struggles in what she calls the Global North and South.
“We have a great investment in how women are treated around the world, in terms
of justice and peace,” Diane Lopez Hughes, the event’s organizer and moderator, agreed. “On the local level, there are groups represented here who are doing something
similar in terms of women’s empowerment.”
K’Lani Bishoff from Sojourn Shelter, a Springfield organization that assists
victims of domestic violence, talked about her role in the Sojourn Advocate For
Emergency Response program. As part of this initiative, the Springfield Police
Department reports incidents of domestic violence to an on-call advocate, who
then responds immediately to the scene to offer support and options to victims.
The organization supports 1,600 clients in Sangamon, Logan, Menard, Christian
and Montgomery counties through other such services as an emergency shelter
with space for as many as 32 women and children, court advocacy, education and
counseling for both women and children, and a 24-hour help hotline.
“This is a worldwide issue, this is a women’s issue,” Bishoff said. “We are working very hard and every year, every moment we are getting closer to
stopping the cycle of violence.”
Paulette Roberts, the clinical program coordinator for Project Return, told
audience members that her organization mentors incarcerated mothers after their
release and helped 11 different women in 2008. Project Return’s team of volunteers offers women a wide array of services, from helping them
locate housing, healthcare, or jobs to reuniting them with their children.
According to Project Return, 103,310 women are serving time in state and federal
prisons, the majority of them for property crimes and drug offenses. Many of
them are victims of poverty and violence, Roberts said, and may have developed
these habits as coping mechanisms. What the women need, she added, are people
around them to offer encouragement and to show them different ways of viewing
the world.
“I tend to believe that they would have chosen a better way under different
circumstances,” she said. “Many of them, from the get-go, don’t believe in themselves in the first place.”
Mary Stone, the director of M.E.R.C.Y. Communities, appeared on the panel as the
fifth speaker and discussed her organization’s role in introducing transitional living programs to Springfield. Between when
M.E.R.C.Y. first opened 10 years ago and today, she said, women and children
have continued to comprise the majority of the city’s homeless population.
The organization provides 27 transitional housing units, in which homeless women
with children can live for up to two years while they receive counseling and
mentoring, parenting and life skills education, and job training. A permanent
supportive living program and related services, started in 2005, also serves
homeless women with disabilities and their children.
“The first four moms are still with us,” Stone said. “The goal is six months, so we’re happy. We are giving the children stability, the family is intact, and they’re safe — which is probably the most important thing we can do.”
During the comment section of the program, Peg Knoepfle, a local women’s advocate, told the panel that she was “struck by how person-to-person all of these projects are and how much soul and
spirit that they have in them.”
Roberts agreed, saying that working with those in need has exposed her to the
difficulties and pain that others feel and sparked in her a sense of purpose.
“I have some of my own pain, but I’ve outgrown it and I’m OK now,” Roberts said. “I can set a good example and be a good role model. There are so many women out
there who are hungry for that.”
“You’re not out for world peace,” Hughes added. “But taking one person at a time, that’s how we achieve world peace.”
This article appears in Mar 5-11, 2009.
