What can Utah State University do for single moms?

USU needs this type of program to help more single moms get an education. Read on, I am sure you will agree with me.

      One of the minds in Cleveland I admire the most belongs to Denise Reading.
Where most people see only problems, she sees solutions.
  
     She was in her first job as a professional, as Baldwin-Wallace College's student life director, when a student tearfully confided that her younger sister, a bright student with a full ride to another college, had gotten pregnant in her senior year of high school.  Her sister would have to give up her dream of going to college, she cried.

    The year was 1990. Reading had heard similar stories, and it spurred her to type up a letter to Baldwin-Wallace's president. This college claims to support students, she wrote, so why don't we back that promise up by going out on a limb for single parents? She suggested converting a campus building into a residence for single moms, and channeling existing financial aid toward covering their tuition, room and board. "I didn't have any children, I didn't know anything about social services," she remembers with a laugh.
 
     But it seemed to her that if students had shown the ability to succeed in college, the door shouldn't be slammed because of a pregnancy. It was a cheeky move. Very few U.S. colleges had tried anything like it.
But Reading persuaded the president to launch its SPROUT program, or Single Parents Reaching Out for Unlimited Tomorrows, during the next school year.

     I wrote about it back then, interviewing the four young mothers who enrolled. One of them was Tara Stephens, whose sister had cried on Reading's shoulder. Stephens arrived at Baldwin-Wallace with a 3.7 grade-point average and a 9-month-old daughter. Her little girl, Andrianna, spent her earliest years eating meals in the college dining hall and going with Mom to meetings in the student union.

    Government vouchers pay for the day care of SPROUT kids. The young moms qualify for other government aid, but director Julie Candela drums into their heads that these are benefits they shouldn't use.
"We teach the women not to take anything they don't need, and to value what taxpayers are providing for them. They are on the road to becoming the next generation of taxpayers who will help those who come behind them," says Candela.

    Candela runs a tight ship, and not every mom can deal with SPROUT's strict rules. But of the 99 women who have enrolled since 1990, 62 have attained college degrees.
That's 62 persistent women who are now prepared to earn far more than the $6,900 average annual income of their peers ages 18-35 who first had a child at 17 or younger.

    SPROUT, which has expanded to serve 12 women annually, held a 20th anniversary celebration last year. Reading thought she would explode with joy as she looked around the room filled with well-heeled graduates.
    
     And then she saw Tara Stephens, now a business systems analyst at Progressive Insurance who goes by her married name of Tara Lee. Reading hugged her -- and this time Reading was the one crying.
Through tears, she glimpsed a young woman standing near Lee.
"This couldn't be," Reading thought.
But it was. Baby Andrianna is now a cum laude graduate of Hiram College, with plans to go to medical school.

    I look at SPROUT's success and I know that education is one of the best tools for breaking the cycle of teen pregnancy handed down from mother to daughter. The cycle is a big problem in Cleveland, where 76 percent of babies born have single moms.

    SPROUT graduates usually don't have more kids out of wedlock, and neither do their kids.
For a glimpse of how powerful is the program's reach, all we need to do is look at the children of its earliest graduates. They're in college themselves.

     Reading, who now heads her own company, Solon-based Global Corporate College, has a knack for helping teens beat the odds. She also created the Baldwin-Wallace Scholars program that is helping young men from Cleveland schools find their way to college.

      It all started, she reflects, the day she dreamed up SPROUT. "Something in me said, 'Do it.' "
She feels thankful that "Whatever was in me didn't just say, 'Oh, that's a bad problem' and walk away."
I'm grateful too. see full article

DID YOU KNOW?

• Single mothers represent 82.6% of all custodial parents.

• Single mother families are more likely to be affected by poverty than any other. For a single-parent family with two children, the average income required to be self-sufficient in Utah is $30,532.

• While only 10 percent of all families in the U.S. live in poverty, nearly 30 percent of single-mother families live in poverty.

• The average income for a single-mother family is $26,000 (lower than the average income for a single-father family). Though 77 percent of Utah single mothers work, many remain economically vulnerable. Thirty eight percent have an income of less than $20,000 a year.

• Single mothers often do not have the education or work experience needed to command a high salary.

Wow! Did you know that? These stats are staggering.

I found this information on a flyer that Dept of Workforce Services  had stacked next to others fuyers and resouces up on the deck, But I wanted to grab my single mother friend away for an evening so we can meet and pull our heads together and make this site go to site for every thing one family can take advatage of and share would children clothd if we have no need for them  OR   We can  gather at a park dump out the bags of clothes then basically they the single parents have at the piles


If you cick below you will be taken to the web site that will give single mother the benefits of attend the seminar. I will be going so  if there are single moms within cache valley who wish to go please comment below and share a vehicle.

http://www.batc.edu/index.cfm?page_id=199

Man Skills

I hate depending on a man. I hate feeling inferior. "She's a girl, she doesn't know." and "Woman should never be on ship", or that term 'woman driver', suggesting women don't know how to drive or even take care of cars. Don't get me wrong. I am not really into the whole women's lib thing. I also think a woman's place is in the home, nurturing the children but single moms don't always get to do that.
Guys are just as bad when the tables are turned. I will never figure out why a guy can't find his own belongings in his own house? You know the phrase, "Honey where's my...?" or "Have you seen my....?"
We women consider ourselves fortunate if our husbands can even find the silverware drawer. Its proof that our guys are not totally clueless.

But in a single moms home, none of this exists. For the sake of surviving, we have to take out the trash, do the dishes, be the bread winner, feed the kids, fold the laundry..... the list really is endless. And just to survive we have to either befriend a machanic who can do the work in exchange for the kind of cookies that taste just like his mom used to make or we have to develop those "man skills".

Its a hard road, but I would rather learn "man skills" than share my cookies.

Sweet Revenge!

I have a ten year old son. He is a picky eater and when he was younger I would cruise the library of cookbook made for kids. Thinking that I would get him interested in cooking and someday I could relax, put my feet up and have him serve me a plate of spaghetti. Now, he is ten and he likes NOTHING that I cook for him. So I decided, after months of listening to him whine right after I told him what is for dinner, that he would get a week of cooking dinner for the family.
My plan is that:
First, thru the hard work of preparing meals for the family he will come to appreciate my hard work

Second, that he will learn how to fend for himself-

Third, that he will get a glimpse of what buying and shopping for food is all about.

Single Parenting Woes and Pleasures

I became a single mom when my kids were just two and three years old. I blamed the man who left us and the woman he left us for for breaking up my family. It took years of struggling to finally get comfortable in my new position as head of the household. I struggled with finances, grief over my loss, raising two unpotty-trained boys alone. Through all the problems I had I came to the realization that life is what you make is. (I think that is a quote)

There are plenty of losses on the way to raising these children of ours. But there are a few pleasures I would have problems giving up if I ever had the chance to get married again.

1.) I get my own bed. I would have to share it with a man, who may or may not smell or snore.

2.) Being single, there is no one around to have disagreements with over finances.

3.) I get to take care of myself.  While being an at home mom, there was never time or money for me to go get a hair-cut or to go buy a pair of jeans.

Point is, after my divorce my family unit was changed and a little lost for a time. Now after a few years, I have developed my own family unit, yes it is without a dad, but it can still work. We still love and take care of each other.

Being single is a time to look at your life and decide who you are. Re-define yourself, then re-define your family unit. That is what this blog will be about. A place to share. Share our stories, our troubles, our tricks to surviving. Please pay special attention to the needs of others in the Chit-chat room. Share your needs and the needs of others you know who are struggling. There are those of us in this network of single parents who can meet your needs.