LAFAYETTE TODAY
Working with single moms and their kids, like Shatia, an Easton Area High School freshman, and her son Malachi, was an eye-opener for Rachel Gallagher ’07.
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Students Aid Single Moms
In a course on single motherhood in the United States today, Rachel Gallagher ’07 and Anja McCartney ’06 got an up-close look at the struggles faced by Easton’s single moms.
“I met a lot of people in the community and realized how much interest there was among faculty and students—we have a lot of students who volunteer in the community—
in running a program out of Easton Area High School, which would be supported by guidance counselors, doctors, nurses, and social workers, with the goal of helping young women who are committed to finishing high school, being good parents, and receiving a post-secondary education,” says Deborah Byrd, associate professor of English. Single mothers receiving services through Third Street Alliance for Women and Children were quickly included.
The program incorporates in-school and in-home tutoring, a “mommy and me” swim program at the YMCA, and workshops on nutrition, how to create a baby-sitting cooperative, word processing, and nurturing childhood emotional and intellectual development.
“We wanted to give our students, who already have a good understanding of the issues of
poverty, privilege, and various forms of oppression, the opportunity to apply what they have learned by working in the community,” Byrd says. “The course gives them a chance to try to make a constructive change in society and to learn that it takes time and effort. You have to be involved in collective action.”
Gallagher, who has an inter-disciplinary major in Equality and Justice, helped start a mentoring relationship between older single mothers at Third Street Alliance
and the Easton High teens.
“It’s important for women experiencing the same issues to influence one another,” she says.
“We wanted the teen parents to face reality, come to terms with how serious the issues are, and become proactive about the problems and issues they’re going to face. It’s important for the Third Street Alliance moms to work with the
teens because the teens are still focusing on their educations, and because they’re in that environment, they are still instilled with the sense of hope that a lot of the Third Street Alliance moms have lost.”
“This course has probably been the single most important, fundamentally changing, impacting class I’ve had during my academic life at Lafayette,” Gallagher continues. “It combines real-life experiences, community connections, and academia more
than any other course I’ve had.”
“Sometimes you forget there’s a world outside Lafayette,” says McCartney, a neuroscience graduate. “You can go around on a daily basis and not be impacted by what’s going on outside Lafayette’s walls. But making these connections reminds
us of what’s really important at the end of the day.”
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