“Envision a day when all of Union County children, adults, and families have the resources and community support they need to succeed. Envision living in a community that doesn’t lose kids or adults to abuse, addiction, poverty, or crime. Envision a community where a new generation will become the best and the brightest regardless of personal situations.”
When you open the pamphlet that lays out the vision the SHARE Foundation is working towards through their Violence Intervention Plan (VIP) in Union County, these will be some of the first goals you read.
And to help make those goals a reality, Makenna Thomas works diligently every day to foster those visions. Thomas is one of two current VISTA workers through AmeriCorps at the SHARE Foundation. VISTA is a program of the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), a federal agency that puts people in national service programs, according to the SHARE Foundation.
A native of Monroe, Louisiana and current Public Health student at Southern Arkansas University, Thomas recalls what initially motivated her to get into Public Health and work towards the betterment of people.
“My mom is an RN (Registered Nurse). I would watch her interactions and one-on-ones with her clients and it inspired me to help people as well,” Thomas said. “Public health is not the same as being a nurse but I get to educate and help people as well.”
Thomas is already hard at work to get to know the El Dorado community and the specific needs of El Dorado residents. To help with that, she collects a lot of data from locals to see what the immediate concerns are.
“Right now I’m working on a lot of surveys in the community. For example, I asked, what is a barrier for you here? And a lot of people responded with transportation. So my next step is to put together a resource bank of all the organizations in Union County that help with transportation,” Thomas explained. “Because without transportation, people are missing out on doctor’s appointments, their kids may not get to school, they can’t get food or go to work.”
And it is this community outreach and trying to bridge the gaps for community members that Thomas and the Violence Intervention Plan is hoping will curb violent crime. According to the SHARE Foundation, when people feel like they don’t have access to means or just a basic living, that’s when crime and violence start to really impact the community.
Makenna Thomas, like the VIP, will be focusing on six key areas: Mentoring, Re-entry, Neighborhoods, Parenting/Life Skills, Jobs/Targeted Education and Mental Health/Substance Abuse. The SHARE Foundation believes working on these targets will strengthen programs impacting children, teens, their parents and grandparents, those reintegrating into the community from incarceration and abusive home situations, and those suffering from addiction and mental health issues.
Debbie Watts, SHARE Foundation’s vice president of community impact, explained the importance of the work that Thomas and the VIP are doing.
“There’s a stat that says every inmate in Union County has at least one child. So on average, there are about 200 children in the county without parents,” Watts said. “Grandparents are becoming primary parents again and raising their grandchildren. When inmates are released they struggle to navigate trying to find jobs and a place to live because of the stigma surrounding them; all of this is what we are trying to combat with our work,” Watts said.
And a resource that Thomas is working on to help with these problems is called “Good Grid.”
“With ‘Good Grid,’ former inmates or anyone can come into the community and with this online database, they can go through this resource hub to find a job, a place to live, and other things they need,” Thomas said. “This is going to be a year long project for me and I really think it is going to be a major help to a lot of people.”
Thomas will be a VISTA with the SHARE Foundation for a year. She is hitting the ground running and has ambitious goals.
“Makenna told me she wants to end poverty,” Watts said laughingly. “I told her I don’t know if we’ll be able to do that but will work as hard as we can to get close.”
It is this ambition that makes Watts and the Foundation confident in Thomas being able to do tremendous work for Union County and accomplish an ultimate goal.
“Our goal is to break the cycle. They say it takes three generations to break a cycle but we want to break it before it goes through three generations,” Watts said.