Ministry with: Moore Community House

Stagnant wages and a growing cost of child care has created a gap, and sitting firmly in the middle are millions of children who require caregivers.

While the expense for everyone is concerning, the cost burden for families experiencing poverty is overwhelming. This reality is especially true for single-parent homes that rely on outside assistance to care for children while the parent works. It can feel like a catch-22: working long hours for insufficient wages to provide for children; only to have a large percentage of income spent on the child care that makes those long hours possible. Data have shown that the cost of child care rivals (and often surpasses) the cost of college tuition, making the service inaccessible to low-wage workers.

A ministry in Biloxi, Mississippi, is working to provide solutions to both of these concerns by offering pathways to higher wage employment for women in the community and access to affordable child care for their children.

We spoke with the Rev. Carol Burnett at Moore Community House to learn more.

Tell us about the ministry.

Moore Community House was founded in 1924 in east Biloxi, a culturally rich but economically poor neighborhood on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Our programs fit within United Methodist Women’s mission priority issues of economic justice and maternal and child health.

Moore Community House responds to the needs of low-income women and children in our community through two programs that research shows have the greatest impact in moving families closer to economic security: affordable child care that supports work; and job training that leads to higher paying wages.

The early childhood program that we offer is Early Head Start, coupled with extended day and summer care. We’re serving families below the poverty level who couldn’t afford these services if they had to pay for them — in particular infant and toddlers, which is the most expensive child care — nor would they get services that are so comprehensive.

Our Women in Construction program provides short-term job training experience for low-income women and helps them get placed into employment that allows them to make three times or more minimum wage, which is what many of them were earning before they came into the program.

What dream is the ministry pursuing?

Economic security for low-income, single-mom-headed families, and that’s connected to a vision for gender and racial justice.

Is there a particular moment or memory that stands out for you?

There’s no contest: Hurricane Katrina. I remember returning to east Biloxi shortly after the storm and seeing the devastation in our neighborhood and to our facilities. After Hurricane Katrina, Moore Community House adapted to fit the changed needs of our community. We expanded our early childhood program to be entirely Early Head Start, which provides a greater depth and breadth of family services than traditional child care. It was also post-Katrina that we launched Women in Construction, to give women access to the many construction-related jobs created during the recovery. Our first Women in Construction class graduated in 2008 (about three years after the storm), and I remember seeing one of our first Women in Construction students at graduation, holding a child in one arm and a toolbelt in the other, speaking about the agency and opportunity the program had given her.

The women we work with already do everything in their power to support their families before they join our program, but the training opens up the opportunity for their efforts to be more successful.

What have your neighbors (those utilizing services) taught you in doing this work?

What we learn about the challenges they face, the amazing ways they work to try to move forward and what is thwarting their efforts. We learn where those barriers are and what we need to focus on to move those barriers out of the way and then build pathways and supports to make their efforts successful. We know from the experiences of these moms what policies need to be different and how the services need to be shaped in order to make their efforts successful.

What challenges have you encountered, and how have you adapted?

As I said, Hurricane Katrina challenged us as an organization, it challenged our staff, and it challenged our families. It was a fell swoop of devastation. We were open to new ideas that could help us respond to the needs of our neighbors in their current environment. The concept of the Women in Construction program was introduced to us by a national organization, Wider Opportunities for Women, that helped us do a study to see if there would be interest in the idea locally. Being willing to listen and partner has helped us a lot as we navigate what we need to do to best serve our community.

An additional challenge we face is the negative assumptions made about poor, single-mom-headed families, which are often rooted in stereotypes and prejudices. These false assumptions can often lead to programs, especially public programs, that are punitive instead of supportive, that focus on negatives instead of strengths. Our approach is contrary to this, and that can be a challenge in our current policy environment.

#What advice would you give to others who are working to be in ministry *with?

Learn from those impacted what their experience is and what their needs are, and build from that.

Be cognizant of differences in culture, language, race and gender, and don’t impose your cultural assumptions on to other people.

Be willing to be curious and learn.

Hold in balance the need to be pragmatic but the challenge to be bold because meeting people’s needs shouldn’t end with meeting people’s needs — it should include making change in the world.

How can people contact you if your ministry inspires them?

Check out our website, www.moorecommunityhouse.org, for more information about our programs, or email me at cburnett@moorecommunityhouse.org.