Program pushes woman to excel

By GINA KINSLOW
Glasgow Daily Times

GLASGOW August 26, 2008 01:17 pm

— Micah Tisdale hopes to be a writer someday.
She’s interested in journalism and would like to write “the great American novel.”
“Doesn’t everybody?” she asked.
Tisdale, of Glasgow, graduated from Draughon’s Junior College in Bowling Green in July with a degree in business administration techno-logy.
She had been toying with the idea of going back to school, but wasn’t really able to make it happen for herself until she got involved with the Single Parent Explosion Program at the Liberty District-Ralph Bunche Community Center.
It was through the program she learned “to be more self-efficient,” she said. “I learned I could do anything I put my mind to.”
Tisdale tends to be on the shy side and said her involvement with the program has helped her “break out of her shell.”
She chose to major in business administration technology because she thought it would help her advance her current career. Tisdale works as a cashier at Wal-Mart and hopes to one day move into management.
She said her 13-year-old daughter, Kaitlyn, was excited when she decided to go back to school.
“She said we could do our homework together,” Tisdale said.
Now that Tisdale has one degree under her belt, she’s thinking about applying to Western Kentucky University to major in either writing or journalism.
She learned about the Single Parent Explosion Program from Alma Glover, director of the Liberty District-Ralph Bunche Community Center.
Glover invited Tisdale to volunteer at the center. It was while she was volunteering that the single mother decided to attend one of the program’s meetings.
“Micah started with the program in 2006. She came to one of the educational sessions we had. They helped her get into school and she stuck with it and graduated,” Glover said.
The program started in 2006 as a support group for single parents, but officials saw a need for it to be much more.
The program offers single parents many things, said Vinetta Williams-Bristow, a program facilitator.
“We expose single parents to resources that will help them with parenting skills, help them find affordable insurance, provide them with resources to help them buy housing rather than always renting, resources for recreation and family type programs where both they and their children can participate, and spiritual enlightenment,” she said.
The program networks with community agencies to provide single parents with that type of information.
Participating agencies include the University of Kentucky Extension Service, which presented a program on how to prepare quick meals, and the Barren County Health Department, which provided information on health care.
“It’s a community network of people that we invite to come to help these single parents,” Glover said.
The program also provides child care.
“We try to make it easy for people, so they can attend the meetings,” she said.
Williams-Bristow said she hopes participants build “a sense of self-efficiency” and “understand their role in society.”
Single parents don’t necessarily want handouts, but rather opportunities where they can improve themselves, she said.
“Personally, what I do is try to set up programs, speakers and things where they can interact,” she said. “Not just have someone come and lecture to them. I try to facilitate opportunities for them to put to practice what they hear being offered.”
Tisdale is the first program participant to graduate from college. A reception to honor her is Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Liberty District-Ralph Bunche Community Center.
For more information about the Single Parent Explosion Program, call 834-8537.

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