Thank you for considering donating to our future.
Since I was a little girl, 305 8th Street has been my second home. My grandparents helped my mother out with raising me. Every day after school, they would pick me up, and we would go to the group home. There I did my homework, then played UNO or with the pinball machine in the basement before going to dance class. After dance class, my mother would pick me up, and we would head home.
Growing up, I never thought of running the group home. Back then, Granny and Granddaddy would do it forever. But when they died three weeks apart in 2001, the group home and its residents slowly fell into despair. The organization continued to run, but the repairs, the resident’s needs, and the financial strain nearly caused the program to close in 2007.
Knowing that the home was in need, I couldn’t stop thinking about spending the night in the hospital with my Granddaddy and him weeping because he feared what would happen to the residents if he died. The memory was one that overwhelmed me at the time, and it stuck with me.
With that in mind, I had to take action and initially close the home and find a safer placement for the residents. 305 8th Street and the Bastin Home in Athens seemed condemnable. On July 4, 2007, I started by slowly moving residents from the Bastin Home in Athens, AL, to 305 8th Street or placing them in other state-funded group homes if they qualified. The Bastin Home closed in 2008.
I learned that of the 21 residents left in our care, I would have to take all of them to the rescue mission because they did not qualify for a state program for one reason or another. There was no time to spare, and it was just faith that saw me, the residents, and the home through each day.
It is still what drives us today.
The reason an endowment is so important to me is I don’t want my children or grandchildren to see the haunting reality my Granddaddy felt on his dying bed. When you leave this world behind, you want your family to be taken care of, and the residents were considered more notable family members to my grandparents than their immediate family. They honestly had a heart for the vulnerable.
An endowment is more than a fund that might one day help sustain our monthly cost; it is the lifeline of the organization’s future. Our mission is to serve adults with disabilities who do not qualify for state services. As our needs in our community continue to grow for the elderly and cognitively disabled, it is capital funding and cash flow that will ensure our residents care, safety, and all of their needs.
Thank you for considering giving the gift of our future. If you would like to visit, give me a call at 256-261-3606.
Your friend,
Andrea Williams
Executive Director