By Stephen Smoot
Starting late last year, Eastern Action established a family support center in Franklin. Last April, the facility moved downtown. The center strives to provide assistance to families that need help.
On Monday, they received a major infusion of help from Aetna in the form of a $50,000 donation.
Sherry Kuhl represented Aetna. She serves as the community development coordinator for 15 counties in the eastern region of the state. Kuhl was on hand to celebrate the grant of $50,000 from Aetna to Pendleton County Family Support Center.
“Typically, in West Virginia, we’re really self-reliant,” Kuhl stated. She went on to say that through programs like Family Support Centers, Communities In Schools, and other programs, children learn that families can use community resources to help. Kuhl praised direct community work, saying, “I have seen more, like Bethany Perez, (a drug recovery specialist with Potomac Highlands Guild) going into the schools to be face to face” and “getting to know them.”
Kuhl described the Pendleton County Family Support Center as “a newer piece of the community service environment” and that the donation represented “a good opportunity to give them a boost.”
Also on hand for the event were Dr. King Seegar, Edna Mullenax, director of the family support center, Susan Knibiehly, and Matt Hinkle.
Seegar discussed how the center fit into the county’s “community service environment,” saying that other area services “amplify what we do.” He added that “we do a spectrum” of services that “relieve the anxiety over primary things.”
The Pendleton County Family Support Center welcomes those seeking support, help, advice, or just an opportunity to socialize with others. Parents, children, guardians, and individuals come to learn, to get help, or even simply “hang out.”
Mullenax shared that “a lot of folks feel like it’s for low income, but it’s not.” Households with incomes up to 300 percent of the poverty level may receive direct help. That help, she says, includes “having fun events and also life coaching to help parents to reach their goals.”
Recently, she said that “two families completed CAN classes and are ready to work. Three got business licenses.”
Parents of all backgrounds sometimes need help and advice for issues such as discipline, encouraging students to perform better in school, and other day-to-day problems. Those questions do not confine themselves to one category or another. The Family Support Center provides a space where they can learn from experts or each other.
Another mission of the center, as described by Mullenax, is “as Dr. Seeger always says, collaborate, collaborate, collaborate.” He has set a goal of making “sure we get Energy Express here.”
According to West Virginia University Extension Service, who runs the program, Energy Express is “a free award-winning, six-week, summer reading and nutrition program for children in first through sixth grades living in West Virginia’s rural and low-income communities. This program aims to prevent the ‘summer slide,’ in which children regress in their reading skills because they aren’t learning during the summer.”
Seegar pointed out that COVID 19 affected children passing through the early grades significantly, preventing many from learning to read at an adequate level. “Energy Express,” he notes, “is an exciting thing for us to get involved in.” It also serves his larger goal of working to emphasize educational attainment as a community growth strategy.
Another example of collaboration comes from the center’s help to the Town of Franklin. It provided funding for the Town of Franklin to install new cameras and lighting at the park to enhance safety.
Another collaboration project coming up this week will see the family support center take its act on the road to Warner’s Drive-In. The center will perform outreach to children and families to help to bring more participants into the center’s programs and goals.
