It is with thanks to God for having blessed Women on Mission with $65,000 to grant to an agency that is helping those who live in College Hill, that last night WOM, awarded the grant to Connection to Success to address father absenteeism in the community. In College Hill, 1 out of 3 households are run by a single mother, with the father completely out of the picture. So often, the father wants to be involved, but is unable. Sometimes as Napoleon Williams described last night, the father doesn’t have a job, so is unable to pay child support and is sent to jail keeping him from being able to be there or to obtain a job to pay the support. The cycle then repeats itself. Connections to Success will provide services to 20 fathers in College Hill with the skills necessary to obtain and retain a job, fatherhood training and child support education to name a few. I believe we were all moved last night at Napoleon, the Outreach Coordinator for Connections to Success, told his own story about how he was raised fatherless. The first time he met his father was at a family funeral. A man in an orange jumpsuit with handcuffs was escorted up the aisle for viewing. A family member leaned over to him and said “that’s your father”. Napoleon journey started down the wrong path, but fortunately, Napoleon received help from Connections to Success and is now working for them. A great success story. We pray that through this grant, Connections will be able to make more success stories a reality for fathers and their children.
Early the next morning, we gathered in the Garden of Courage to present Connections to Success with their award. Watch the video of the presentation here!