Volunteers of America help Alabama’s mentally disabled

Four men sat at a table on the covered patio of a northwest Huntsville home. Two played checkers, two put together a puzzle of an American flag.
   
When one of the men, Jerry, was asked to sing a song, other activities suddenly stopped. Grabbing a guitar, Jerry took center stage, singing, “You Are My Sunshine.”
 He repeated the chorus several times, then finally ran out of steam. The men returned to their activities.
   
It is a scene that is fairly common for the mentally challenged residents of a Volunteers of America group home and the people who care for them.
“Everyone has a stigma about (group) homes,” said Rita Strain, development director of Volunteers of America of North Alabama. “We keep them impeccable, and someone is there 24 hours a day.”
   
While the North Alabama chapter based in Huntsville primarily focuses on helping people with mental disabilities, that is just one of many aspects of the national organization, which has been around for more than a century.
   
But despite its longevity, Volunteers of America suffers from a major identity crisis in the outside world: the nonprofit Christian-based organization does not actually use many volunteers to provide services. It hires most of its workers.
   
And in the North Alabama area, for example, it primarily needs money and donations of clothing and furnishings for its clients and their group homes, and some donated service work such as house and lawn maintenance.
   
“While we do use some volunteers occasionally, we mainly hire staff members who have been trained to work with people who are disabled,” Strain said.
   
The program is designed for mentally challenged people whose families can’t afford private care.
   
First called God’s Volunteers, the organization was founded in New York in 1896 by Christian social reformers Ballington and Maud Booth, son and daughter-in-law of Salvation Army founder William Booth.
   
Its program is based on many of the same principles as the Salvation Army — helping people overcome their problems while bringing them to a knowledge of the gospel.
   
In his last address to the organization in 1937, Booth said, “I want you to understand more and more that the great purpose of the Volunteers of America, the great reason for membership in this organization, is to bring men and women to Jesus Christ.”
   
The organization served more than 1.4 million in 45 states during 2001, with about 90 percent of its gross income going directly to its clients.
   
Nationally, its services include foster care for abused and neglected children, services to the elderly, correctional services (halfway houses and work-release programs), home health care, emergency outreach and shelter for the homeless and substance-abuse programs.
   
In north Alabama, Volunteers would like to add to their services a respite care home to serve the developmentally disabled who live with their families. Strain said it would be “home away from home” and give parents and caregivers relief as needed.
   
“We are trying to reach out as much as we can across the country, but unfortunately there is more need than can be met by the 40 local offices across the U.S.,” said Lee Dachi, director of development and affiliate advancement at the group’s national office in Alexandria, Va., during a recent visit. Most of the organization’s operating funds come from state and federal grants, Medicaid and Social Security.
   
The rest usually comes from individual or business donors, and in some cases, a client’s family will donate money, although it is not required, Strain said.
   
Many of the organization’s clients in north Alabama who are able to work do so at the organization’s Day Rehabilitation Center. They are taught a skill or do simple tasks such as inserting telephone books into plastic wrappers. They are paid a salary, which they keep, if they are hired to do tasks for an outside entity.
   
Last year’s operating budget was a little more than $9 million in North Alabama according to Victor Tucker, president and CEO of Volunteers of America of North Alabama since 1984.
   
“We like for these people to have a sense of home, and we provide support services to their liking,”  Tucker said.
“It is a challenge to meet the needs and to do it well.”
   
Until three decades ago, most of Alabama’s mentally disabled were placed in institutions.
   
“We were warehousing people with disabilities, but in the past 30 years the national trend has been to move them out into the community,” Tucker stated.
   
Strain credits Alabama’s only woman governor for helping change attitudes toward the mentally disabled.
   
“Lurleen Wallace started campaigning for the mentally ill when she was governor,” Strain said. “Now we’ve learned there’s not many who can’t learn some things. They just need to be in a clean environment, have good food and self worth.” (RNS)