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DEL.ICIO.USHonor memory by helping ministry help others
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
No one had seen him in days, and that wasn’t the Craig A. Molnar whom management and guests at the Villa Lodge Inn and Suites in Lawrenceville had come to know.
When Sunday rolled around and he had not shown, management rapped on his door, then went inside Room 106. Molnar, 46, was slumped over a desk in his sparse room. The official cause of death has not yet been determined, according to the Gwinnett medical examiner’s office.
A month ago, I’d interviewed Molnar in that same room. He was chipper. Good news had rained down on him and brighter days seemed to beckon.
Months before, the Lawrenceville Cooperative Ministry had paid for his initial stay in the lodge. They also helped Molnar obtain some prescriptions to treat a fatal lung disease that kept him in and out of the emergency room, and prevented sustainable employment.
One Saturday he left a voice message, saying his first disability check had arrived in the mail. Linda Freund, who oversees the Lawrenceville ministry, helped him open an account.
“I’m fine,” he’d told me.
Molnar used to sleep in the woods and along the railroad tracks near Lawrenceville. His health, coupled, I’d imagine, with errant decisions through the years, put him there. Big deal.
Those of you who live smug, mighty and arrogant and tend to crow about how people need to help themselves can kiss my glass. What happened to Molnar could happen to anybody. To you.
I got a call Monday from a 51-year-old mother of two who can’t find work and is about to be evicted from her home. She wanted help and wanted me to know that there are plenty of people in Gwinnett just like her, struggling in spite of themselves.
With Molnar, I wrote a series of columns right before Christmas about the county’s growing homeless population. One night we ventured out to look for homeless people in some of his pre-hotel haunts. We didn’t find anyone, only remnants of lives.
No worries. Molnar had already exposed Freund and others to the reality of the situation.
It’s uncertain what type of burial the Michigan native will receive or when it will take place. The Lawrenceville Cooperative Ministry plans to have some type of memorial. I have a suggestion for those who may want to honor, in some way, his memory, initial reluctance and eventual willingness to share his story.
The Lilburn Cooperative Ministry needs to replace its heating and cooling system as well as its piecemeal computer network. The 15-ton heating and cooling unit alone could cost up to $18,000, but a ministry supporter has pledged to do the work at cost, around $13,000.
The Lilburn ministry runs a thrift shop to cover overhead costs, so all donations help the needy. It serves an average of 30 families a day, but “the biggest increase has been in people becoming homeless,” said Kay Whithear, director of the Lilburn ministry.
So, honor Molnar. Help this ministry.
“Knowing Craig helped us understand the needs of the homeless a little better,” Freund told me. “I take grace in knowing he knew the Lord, and is in a greater place.”
And that he didn’t die in the woods.
To help the Lilburn Cooperative Ministry, contact Kay Whithear at 770-931-8333. Donations may be sent to 5329 Five Forks Trickum Road, Lilburn, GA 30047.
• Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
Permalink | Comments (13) | Post your comment | Categories: Rick Badie
Comments
By Paul
July 31, 2007 8:08 AM | Link to this
Nice message – thanks. Just sent them all that I could spare – they’re great people doing wonderful work, and I consider it a positive investment in humanity.
By Michael H. Smith
July 31, 2007 11:45 AM | Link to this
Crops are rotting in the field so pro-illegal alien advocates say (mostly our politicians doing the saying), while the homeless can’t even beg a job (many of whom are U.S. Citizens). Faith based initiatives the compassionate conservatives demand will redeem lives in a state of waste, while the lousy lying liberals decry it as only a move to proselytize.
It leaves the mind to wonder why, these willing workers sleeping in the woods or cars cannot fill the jobs that supposedly, no one wants?
Ministries like this Lawrenceville CO-OP always need food, and Hosea Williams feed the hungry will continue to beg turkey for Thanksgiving Day. While the State of Georgia surely has more than a few acres lying dormant to spare, if only one of the compassionate conservatives “una da gold dome” caught a vision of restoring hope, a few farms could be established on spare land to meet a lot of needs, supply a lot of shelter, and most importantly restore an awful lot of dignity striped away by giving the homeless a reason to believe in their self-worth and in themselves once again.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Yeah, “Promoting the General Welfare”?
By Bruce Wilcox
July 31, 2007 2:24 PM | Link to this
Great column Rick, sadly some just can not comprehend the fact that many of our homeless are unable to work due to a wide range of reasons. This problem has been going on far longer than the illegal immigration problem existed. A lot of Viet Nam veterans, Reagans overhaul of mental health care that put thousands out on the streets, a major illness to a family member without insurance, the loss of a job and so many more reasons can lead even the most upstanding person homeless.
It’s sad that some politicize it by blaming illegals in such a simplistic fashion. The truth be known the compassionate conservatives were in charge of everything the past six years, congress the last twelve years, hard to fathom the problem just popped up this year. And I believe the promise of forty acres and a mule was done before.
By Same Here
July 31, 2007 3:33 PM | Link to this
Just goes to show ya - those who will, do. Those who won’t, blog.
By Bruce Wilcox
July 31, 2007 6:54 PM | Link to this
How about those who have done, retire.
By Bruce Wilcox
July 31, 2007 7:27 PM | Link to this
Something to think about…
Approximately 38 percent of homeless people suffer from a substance abuse problem
In 1996, Congress eliminated SSI and SSDI benefits for people diagnosed with an addiction. There are currently no federal programs that target funds for substance abuse programs for homeless people.
The mortality rate for a homeless person is 3-4 times higher than that of the general public.
A national study indicated that 13 percent of homeless individuals became homeless due to health problems.
Homeless individuals are 10-15 times more likely to suffer from gangrene, gout and ulcerations resulting in amputation; 2-3 times more likely to suffer from gastro-intestinal disorders; and 2-4 times more prone to hypertension.
20-25 percent of homeless people suffer from serious mental illness. Many mentally ill people are inappropriately discharged from hospitals to the streets. Nevertheless, only 5-7 percent of homeless people with mental illness need to be institutionalized. As many as 95 percent could live in community settings if appropriate supportive services and housing were available.
Eight percent of homeless people suffer from AIDS or are HIV-positive.
By Angela S.
July 31, 2007 10:57 PM | Link to this
I’d like to thank you for you article on Craig A. Molnar. It warms me to know that someone else knew my uncle. My name is Angela and I am his niece. On Monday July 30 2007 when Linda called my mom to inform us about him, we always wondered if we would ever here from him again. It’s been 6 or 7yrs and we have missed him and worried about him. He would call us on occasions and then a few years ago or so we hadn’t heared from him. After reading your article and talking to Linda, we are relieved that someone out there had helped him and we can only hope that he would have tried to contact us again. Thank you for your kind and powerful words I can only hope that others will read this article and open their minds to helping others through their local shelters. Homeless is a problem that is overlooked in our everyday lives. A message to anyone that thinks a homeless person has no family, they are VERY wrong. Craig has a family and with no explanation and time we could not locate him or contact him. Thank you for allowing us to remember him for how we remembered him. You have made us at eaze that he did not die without God and friends.
By Michael H. Smith
August 1, 2007 1:56 AM | Link to this
Yeah, sadly “some people” do politicize and worse polarize any issue only to personify their own stupidity and ignorance because they have nothing to bring to the table but to criticize and say: send the check please. Nothing political in illegal, it’s just plain wrong and a plain atrocity to over look U.S. citizens in hiring unauthorized workers to fill their shoes. Very few people are totally disabled. Most only need a hand up, not a hand out. Some other people just need another place to hang out to do their bellyaching, so they can pass their gas without disturbing the rest. While a lot of homeless may surprise the naysayers’ as to what they could do with forty acres and a few tractors. Probably a good bit more than was ever accomplished by the Great-failed-Society of better than forty years ago.
By Michael H. Smith
August 1, 2007 2:34 AM | Link to this
Something more to think about….
Social Security was never meant to serve as a catch all for everything socialist but every Democrat since FDR has strived to make it the grand socialist umbrella program that FDR himself would never have approved of making it into. Yeah Democrats stop raiding the Social Security Trust Fund. And stop misappropriating money from the sin taxes created on alcohol, tobacco and start taking some of that illegal drug money confiscated and appropriate all of it properly to the addicts of these substances.
Meanwhile back on that forty acre farm with a few tractors and a whole lot of sweat equity, coupled with some physical mental therapy the homeless hands are building a lot of shelters that are being built into communities with restoring hope in mind, where other homeless people will not have the stress that causes all those bemoaned ailments. Planting crops, raising livestock, stocking lakes with farm raised fish etc. to distribute to the poor and other homeless in need. And soon success builds on success and the once homeless with confidence renewed venture back on their own with good health and track records to find a job or start a business of their own.
Ah but the lousy lying liberal elites say: Buy that man a fish, don’t teach him he can raise his own fish and catch’em too, we’ll never get his votes if he figures out he doesn’t need us to buy him those fish!
By Bruce Wilcox
August 1, 2007 3:40 AM | Link to this
Maybe you missed the part about the republican congress in 1996 cutting needed programs and funding, but rant on, you never do pay attention to the facts. What color is the sky in that world you live in?
By Michael H. Smith
August 1, 2007 7:38 AM | Link to this
Didn’t miss a thang! Did you miss what was said about Social Security? Did you miss all the years of democrat presidents and congresses? 16 under FDR 8 under Truman 8 under Kennedy-Johnson 4 under Carter 8 under Bill “Slick Willy” Clinton.
Oh and don’t forget 135 years of democrat oligarchy in the State of Georgia where the cure for poverty party has served the poor so very poorly.
Noticed just the other day on C-Span in a funding bill where we’re still fighting poverty in the Appalachia, 40 years after LBJ’s Great Society met the Big Muddy.
And what of Mr. Molnar? He got more out Mr. Badie and the Co-OP ministries - ordinary people doing extraordinary things - than he received from Big Government. And he died before the ink dried good on the disability check!
Mr. Molnar could get a few Social Security checks now that he’s dead: Rumor has it, Big Federal Government is good about paying the deceased.
Then again it’s pretty good about spending citizen taxpayer money for illegal alien healthcare. At last check: About 1.4 billion dollars.
You can come out of the shadows now.
By Bruce Wilcox
August 1, 2007 9:43 AM | Link to this
You haven’t a clue of what you’re talking about. I bet you’re the type that will cross a street in of running into a homeless person up the street.
“Very few people are totally disabled. Most only need a hand up, not a hand out.”, that’s what Reagan said when he closed the mental hospitals.
Now every program Lou Dobbs and you come up with costs money, a lot of money, yet you never come up with the way to pay for it. From removing 12 million to funding a massive helping the homeless bill? Maybe you could get a loan from Senator Ted Stevens (R) or the Democrats will raise taxes, I can hear the screams, gee you sound just like Ted Stevens.
By Michael H. Smith
August 1, 2007 11:54 AM | Link to this
Oh Mr. Clueless you are so full of it. I’ll not waste my time any further on your Democrat foolishness. And for the record I have offered alternative ideas if you were astute enough to have observed. All you got is the world wide socialist Democrat schemes. Rob, rob and confiscate again, redistribute then, rob someone else all over again. No thanks I can spend my money and do better than your big socialist welfare government without putting my hand in someone else’s pocket. If only your big socialist government would keep its thieving hands out of mine.