Writer: Michael Hall
Published January 21, 2023
The Brunswick News
More teachers and health care workers, greater access to mental health services, increased literacy rates and affordable housing options were among the pressing community needs aired by a group of community leaders Friday.
They gathered at the Golden Isles Association or Realtors’ classroom on Gloucester Street in Brunswick to tell the Community Investment Committee of United Way what they see as challenges facing Glynn, McIntosh and Camden counties. The idea was to let the committee members hear directly from the people working to overcome those challenges so the committee can make wise decisions on where to invest the money raised during the annual United Way fundraising campaign.
“It’s important that they hear from the community because this money is being raised in the community and for the community,” Janelle Harvey said.
United Way of Coastal Georgia works with nonprofits to support projects and programs with the goal of advancing the common good of the community, according to its website.
“We want to make sure we are making the most impactful investments,” said Justin Callaway, president and CEO of United Way of Coastal Georgia.
Capt. Michael Robinson of the Glynn County Police Department suggested an investment in youth programs. When there is more for young people to do, there is less chance they will end up in a gang or in a life of crime.
“We have to start engaging with the school system a lot more effectively and a lot more often, and doing it in a way that hopefully serves as a deterrent,” Robinson said.
The department and school system recently started the GREAT Program, which stands for Gang Resistance Education Activity Training. The program works with students as early as elementary school and with middle schoolers to hopefully prevent them from joining a gang.
“We can’t do it in just one year,” Robinson said. “It has to be long term.”
Glynn County Schools Superintendent Scott Spence said the critical need is for employees in all areas of the school system. Support staff and teachers are hard to come by and it’s a nationwide problem.
“We have to do something to change that tide,” Spence said.
The No. 1 reason people are leaving teaching, according to a study by the Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia, is because of challenges dealing with parents and bureaucratic red tape.
McIntosh County Schools Superintendent Jim Pulos echoed Spence and added that mental health and parental apathy are also challenges.
But literacy is at the top of the importance pyramid for Pulos. That is why the school system in McIntosh is addressing the issue with McIntosh Reads, a program to promote early childhood literacy as well as parental literacy.
“The end of third grade is the shift between learning to read and reading to learn,” Pulos said. “We have to be better at that, and as a community that is a huge issue we have to address.”
Tres Hamilton, CEO of Coastal Georgia Area Community Action Authority, Inc., said she is seeing the same difficulty in recruiting and retaining teachers at the Early Head Start and Head Start preschool programs her organization operates. She wants people to know that her staff at those programs are professional teachers, not babysitters.
She also said getting children involved with various extracurricular activities early on can have positive impacts later in life.
Parental involvement, literacy and finding activities can affect a person’s mental health, which is an issue Dr. Kavanaugh Chandler, CEO of Coastal Community Health, said needs to be addressed, along with educating people on how and where to access health care and how to be professional at work and in a job search. Much like in education, finding qualified people to work in health care continues to be challenging.
Greg Gann, vice president and administrator of Southeast Georgia Health System’s Camden Campus, is seeing the same issues as Chandler. Finding nurses and other employees continues to be a problem. The hospital is partnering with College of Coastal Georgia and Coastal Pines Technical College and offers training in house, but workforce challenges remain.
Mental health services in particular need to be addressed, something the hospital in St. Marys is seeing more and more issues with every day, an added strain on a limited staff.
Hamilton also talked about how difficult it is for families in Coastal Georgia to find affordable housing. Rent has doubled and even tripled in some cases over the past few years, and people are finding it more difficult than ever to remain housed, she said.
“That is one of the biggest things we see, is the affordability of housing, a basic need everyone has,” Hamilton said. “Right now we have families who absolutely cannot afford where they are living.”
She noted that there is no transitional housing available in Glynn County where families can get back on their feet.
Chandler said regardless of the issues, relationships are paramount to overcoming them.
“Problems that are expressed by this panel are all of our problems,” Chandler said. “The challenges are great, they are difficult, but I think continued relationships and interactions of this nature allow us to leverage our existing resources.”
Callaway said the panel’s discussion will be used to inform the Community Investment Committee’s recommendations on how to spend the money raised by United Way.
