Making summer brighter
Published 7:27 am Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Kudos to the employees and the workers and managers at the Lawrence County Department of Job and Family Services.
While they were dealing with changes in computers and the way they run their programs, they all found themselves stressed.
And rather than complain, they decided to deal with the stress by helping others.
Belinda Brown, an Income Maintenance Worker 3 and the president of AFSCME Local 3319 at the agency, came up with the idea of buying summer outfits for the 61 kids in the county’s foster care system.
When she took the idea to Missy Holmes, a caseworker and the vice president of AFSCME Local 8090, and they took the ideas to their respective union workers.
They loved the idea of helping out kids who are in a situation not of their making and the foster parents who have to deal with kids who are always in state of growing out of their clothes.
So, paper flowers went up on a wall with the gender and size of the kids, since if they used names it would violate privacy rules.
“We call our kids ‘flowers,’ so that’s why we had flowers put up on the wall,” Brown explained.
They made sure to get the clothes to the kids before the Ironton-Lawrence County Memorial Day Parade so they could wear brand new clothes to the annual event.
So, kudos to all who made kids feel a little bit better with two new outfits and a swimsuit. Kudos for helping the flowers of Lawrence County bloom.