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Alumna Testify for Life-Changing Roswell Nonprofit
publication date: Apr 18, 2009
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author/source: Maggie Lee / Staff
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It took two years sitting in prison to reawaken the poet in Tracy Marks. She'd written as a child, but she stopped when she had to leave her mother's house for her father and stepmother's. Childhood abuse followed, then addiction. "We were called so many things, all I had was shame," she says of labels like "junkie." "I pay my rent because every woman works/ I provide for my family because every woman works ... Jesus loves me this I know/but I couldn't have cared less five years ago," goes a pair of verses. It's part of a longer piece she recited like a hymn at an Apr. 15 fundraising luncheon for the place that finally helped her put down her shame: Every Woman Works, a Roswell nonprofit. The faith-based program officially includes standard professional training, like computer classes, dressing for success and customer service skills. But it's perhaps the affirmations, the support and the simple joy of the mentors, staff and volunteers that make the program stand out. Marks says she learned to put names on rage and shame and thus, start to understand them. Since the doors opened in 2004, some 300 women have graduated from Every Woman Works. Many have survived abusive relationships, time in prison or addiction. The graduates have among them about 700 children. Every Woman Works survives on donations, in kind or in cash for everything from operating costs to MARTA tickets to milk for the students' children. The luncheon crowd included Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel, who says she's a supporter due in part to her own rough times growing up and God's place in saving her. Frances Browning, a graduate now working as Every Woman Works' office manager says, "this is one of the few programs that picks you up between the cracks of treatment facilities and transitional housing and gets you back into the workforce instead of putting you back in the same environment." Founder and CEO Tillie O'Neal-Kyles - known to all as Ms. Tillie - describes her learning center as a place where women move from dependency to self-sufficiency in a non-threatening and supportive environment. The program is housed in a building owned by Zion Missionary Baptist Church; other groups like Roswell Presbyterian and GE Women are major supporters. She's confident Every Woman Works' second annual fundraising luncheon met the $15,000 goal, though the final figure is not yet available. During the luncheon, alumnae Lisa Palmer testified about how Every Woman Works helped her "paradigm shift." "I'd been through other programs before," said Palmer. Her family, Habitat for Humanity, addiction treatment and faith in God had helped her out of her the lowest place in her life: an offer to sell her precious children for $100 "to pay for the next hit." She cleaned up, regained custody of her children, got a job and a place to live. But when she lost her job, depression, plus being "pompous and proud" kept her unemployed for 11 months and put her home and family in jeopardy. At Every Woman Works, however, "the amazing thing happened. I began to humble myself." She learned to accept jobs she might have rejected before: housecleaning, laundry. She learned to accept resume advice and keep looking the right way for a job. "I'm here to tell you I'm not afraid. Even if I lose my job I'm still okay," in part because she no longer lives paycheck to paycheck. That same confidence and gladness radiated from Marks and other alumnae attending the luncheon. Ms. Tillie cautions though, that sometimes her graduates backslide. She says it's most often due to leaving Roswell and the Every Woman Works support system. Still, according to Every Woman Works' calculations, about 85 percent of graduates find a job and about two-thirds retain it. Most of the jobs are in customer service or retail and, says Ms. Tillie, the women tend to be very thankful to have their jobs. And a note to employers, the next class finishes in May. |
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