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BY SUZANNE HAUGH
Staff Writer
CHAMBLEE--Angel Escobar Chaves, 57, has begun to write a new chapter in his
life with the help of the St. Vincent de Paul Society.
“I need a new history,” said Chaves, a former bus driver from El
Salvador who came to the United States in 1972, was soon sent back by
immigration but returned in 1973 and obtained a green card.
Chaves has lived in San Francisco, Chicago and finally Atlanta where he
moved three years ago at the invitation of a friend. He returned to El Salvador
last year, spending six months helping his mother before she died.
When he returned to the Atlanta area, Chaves said, “I lost my
apartment. I went to (a Catholic) mission … and was sent many
places.”
At one point, Chaves recalled how a friend lent him a truck one night so
that he could sleep.
“I took the truck to Waffle House and slept in the parking lot. I told
the lady working inside and she said okay. I closed my eyes a little bit …
(In the morning) I went inside to eat ... The next day, the same thing.”
Finally someone at the mission suggested he call Catholic Social Services
which then directed him to SVDP.
With the help of SVDP, Chaves now works on a maintenance staff, which
manages three area apartment complexes, and shares an apartment with other men
who are also piecing together their lives through SVDP’s Temporary Housing
Program. The program provides housing and assistance to men who are free of
drug and alcohol addictions and who have no criminal record. Chaves and the
other men being housed are, or soon will be, among the graduates of SVDP’s
Life Skills Program that “hopes to change lives one at a time,” said
Life Skills Coordinator Natalie Marsh.
One facet of SVDP’s mission is to provide temporary help for people who
are in difficult situations through no fault of their own. But SVDP also
responds to situations where people “have made a few wrong
decisions,” Marsh said. She added that even after SVDP has helped these
people through one crisis, some may come back later embroiled in another.
To aid this population and others in temporary distress, the SVDP staff
conceived and designed the Life Skills Program to “help clients make
better decisions through education and training,” Marsh said. “…
It won’t be 100 percent successful, but at least we’re sowing seeds
that they can carry with them and build on that.”
The program, which started in February, consists of four two-hour sessions
on goal setting and decision-making, employment skills, financial planning and
budgeting, and nutrition and food shopping. Classes are offered Tuesdays and
Thursdays from 10 a.m. to noon or 6 to 8 p.m. Participants, 50 percent of whom
are on welfare while the other portion are experiencing a temporary crisis,
receive certificates after completing the program.
Sister Mary Kay Finneran, SC, education and training coordinator, hopes the
clients will have identified employment and educational opportunities,
resources at nonprofit organizations, and acquired budgeting and other basic
life skills on their way to long-term self-sufficiency.
Vital to the program’s success is the commitment of many volunteers.
“We couldn’t do it without the volunteers,” Sister Finneran
said.
One of the volunteers is 23-year-old Marie Simmons, who served one year as a
caseworker in Tulsa, Okla. A graduate of Emory University, Simmons said she
enjoys helping individual students compose their resumes.
“As an English major, I like playing with words and taking a job like a
cashier and dissecting its duties and responsibilities,” she said.
“(Cashiers) don’t just make change.”
Simmons covers interviewing skills, resources for finding jobs and salary
issues in the class, but there is also much sharing of information among
participants.
“They’re educating each other,” she said. “Each has as
much knowledge as I do. They’ve been out there.”
In one instance, Simmons recalled how impressed she was when two women had
already researched many of the legal requirements and state standards for
running day care services.
“I have found few students lacking in basic skills. All seem to have a
drive (to want to improve their lives),” said Simmons, an administrative
assistant at the national headquarters for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America.
“It’s not that I’m up here and you’re down there,”
she said. “We’re all in different places. Some may be political
refugees and others may have made poor financial choices. Overall, in every
group I’ve worked with, everyone has got promise.”
Laurie Moore, a wife and mother of four children, was one of the first three
women to complete the Life Skills Program in February. Before going through the
program, she had become despondent after losing her job, not having enough
money to pay her rent and being unable to care for her two youngest children
ages 8 and 12. Someone told her to call SVDP where a caseworker suggested she
attend the classes.
“I didn’t really want to go, but I needed help with the
rent,” she said.
Despite her initial reaction, Moore said the program helped her. “They
make you feel welcomed and they care a lot about you.”
Since finishing the classes, Moore moved to Roswell from East Point so that
she and her husband could be closer to their jobs and her son could attend a
special school program. Although she is not currently working in order to be
home to meet her children after school, her husband continues a job he started
in February as a custodian at the Fulton County elementary school their two
youngest children attend. They live in a one-bedroom apartment, but hope to
find a larger apartment they can afford.
Sister Finneran noted the positive changes in Moore’s life.
“Everything is not perfect, but she’s in a better place then she
was in February.”
Response to the program has been very positive among the classes that range
in size from three to seven or eight members, according to Sister Finneran.
“(Clients) can interact with each other and share with each other,”
she said.
Of 138 people who went into the program, 80 percent completed it. Initial
motivation is often a challenge “and then when it’s over, they say,
‘Is there anything else I can take?’” Sister Finneran said.
She now promotes the Life Skills Program among other conferences within
SVDP. On Sept. 25, she introduced the program to the St. Marguerite
D’Youville conference in Lawrenceville that will also offer the classes.
“It’s going to grow and grow, but we don’t want it to
snowball too fast because we want to do it well,” she said.
“It’s exciting.”
While Sister Finneran promotes the first phase of the Life Skills Program to
area conferences, Marsh concentrates on her next step of offering clients other
types of training, including computer training in a classroom, located in the
Council’s facility at 2050 Chamblee Tucker Road, Suite C.
“You definitely need to be computer literate, but not all of our
clients have access to computers,” Marsh said. “Those who don’t
want to change (by learning to use computers) will be left behind.”
Classes on Microsoft Word and Excel have already begun and other computer
courses may be added later.
“Once enough people graduate (from the introductory courses), we can
offer more advanced classes,” Marsh said. “We’ll keep dreaming
and recruiting volunteers to give of their time. They’ve been
God-sent.”
In the meantime, clients will continue to attend Life Skills classes and
find a way to move forward. They may even begin to dream again.
For Chaves, having some land is one of his goals.
“My dream is I want to know people … who will work with me and
together we will build a ranch and grow vegetables and (raise) animals. I was
born like this. We never had to buy chickens or vegetables; you grew
them.”
His dream goes beyond his own desires. “I want to give food to people
who are hungry, any time I see people who are hungry … When I was hungry,
somebody helped me.”
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