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CATHOLIC SOCIAL SERVICES HOSTS BREAKFAST in herrin, RAISES AWARENESS

Story and photos by LIZ QUIRIN
Messenger editor

Focus on the children. Focus on those who are hurting or in need. That’s what Catholic Social Services of Southern Illinois (CSS) — an agency of the Diocese of Belleville — does.

With the theme “Helping Hands Helping Kids,” the regional office of Catholic Social Services set the tone for their fourth annual Charity Breakfast April 5 in Herrin.
Always beginning with prayer, Father Richard Mohr of St. Joseph Parish in Marion offered a blessing before breakfast began.

Later, Msgr. Ken Schaefer opened the program with prayer: “Surround the women who are with child, who can choose to give life to that child in an adoptive home.
“Surround the children who need temporary homes and the families that open their homes to them,” he said.

The program opened with testimonies from those who have opened their homes to adoption and foster care.
The McKinneys — John and Heather — adopted Malcom when they discovered they could not have children of their own.

“We signed on with Catholic Social Services, and 17 months later we had Malcom.

John McKinney said his son knows no strangers and makes everyone he sees his friend.
Staying in touch with Malcom’s birth parents has been a blessing, Heather McKinney said.

Foster parenting, a need and a service of CSS challenges those who care for children who have been taken from their homes.

Michelle and William Tauber were trained and began fostering children in 2005.
“There are challenges and rewards,” they said.

They decided to become foster parents, William Tauber said, after attending a meeting where they learned of the great need for the service.

“If we don’t do it, who will?” William Tauber said they asked themselves.

The couple has welcomed 11 foster children into their home in the last three years, nine of them girls.
Often, the children “have lost everything” when they come into “your home. They still love their parents,” but the state has decided they are not safe there right now.

The goal, the Taubers said, is to reunite the children with their families. “It’s always about the kids,” they said.
The Taubers have two girls of their own, and Michelle asked her 11-year-old daughter what she wanted people to know about welcoming foster children into their home.

“Tell them I’m not deprived” of love and affection because other children are joining the family, she told her mother.
The experiences have “changed her life,” Michelle Tauber said. “She’s so much more caring and said she wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Her 8-year-old daughter “feels the same way,” she said. “The rewards outweigh any challenges.”
Challenges also exist in the Latino community in southern Illinois, bilingual counselor, Irma Villadiego, said.
“CSS helps people in the Hispanic community cope with emotional and stressful parts of life,” she said.

CSS helps to sponsor an Alcoholics Anonymous group for Latinos called Walking Back to Life. Carlos Ostos, the cofounder of the Latino AA group in Carbondale, said he grew up in a home where domestic violence existed.
“I went to CSS five years ago and got my life back,” he said. “I grew up with a lot of resentment and violence, but I found my way back to life with CSS.”

In addition to the adoptive and foster care programs and assistance to Latinos, CSS also assists in sponsoring programs for juvenile and adult offenders through its Awakenings program.

Juvenile offenders can apply to participate in a program at Harrisburg Youth Center while they are still incarcerated, and adults on parole or probation can participate in a program after their incarceration.

Nancy Huffman, a family member, spoke of the difference the program had made in her son’s life.
“The difference is amazing,” she said. “He was very angry and would explode, break things and storm out of the house.”

Awakenings has given him the tools to cope with that anger and make positive changes.
Nancy Huffman’s son didn’t realize “how angry” he was or how he “victimized people.” He thought he was the victim. “I’m so thankful for the program.”

Nancy Huffman begged the people attending the breakfast to help those who come out of prison.
Regional CSS director, Mary Lou Loos, said the 300 people who signed up for the breakfast generously opened their checkbooks before they left to donate funds to continue the counseling and other programs offered through the Carbondale office.
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“Just as the service and dedication of many provides comfort and healing for those in need,” Msgr. Schaefer prayed, “just as talent shared provides joy and hope to all who see and listen, may we follow that pattern of self surrender so that we may be life for each other.”

Msgr. Schaefer and those who spoke at the breakfast encouraged participants to be open to those in need, to care enough to step forward when asked, or even without being asked, to care for and protect those most vulnerable in our midst.

“May our hearts be always open … to those in crisis and all those who come to us in times of trouble or sorrow,” Msgr. Schaefer said.

For more information about Catholic Social Services, please call the administrative office in Belleville at 394-5900. For the CSS regional office in Carbondale, please call 351-0743.