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April 2008
Gwinnett Children’s Shelter offers new life and hope
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I recently took a visit to the Gwinnett Children’s Shelter up in Buford and met with Nancy Friauf, executive director, who gave me a tour of the facility and opened my eyes to the realities of just some of the heart breaking stories that have come through their doors.
She shared stories of children who were so brutally abused and neglected it would leave you in tears, furious, or if you are anything like me… both.
I could focus on all the abuse and neglect that led some of the kids to this facility. Kids who have come from every walk of life from living in tents in the woods to the more affluent, and some who don’t even know basic hygiene or how to use a knife or fork.
To me, that is not the purpose of the Gwinnett Children’s Shelter. Among its many roles, the shelter is providing these kids a sense of what a real true loving and supportive home should feel like. Things many of us take for granted.
I am not here to talk about their devastating situations, but rather about how you can help 12 boys and 14 girls heal from their past and have a better present and an even brighter future.
The kids in the shelter have been very fortunate to have some very gracious donors in the past including one woman who told her friends and family she didn’t want anything for her birthday but stuffed animals to donate to the kids for Easter to some businesses such as a pharmaceutical company building a baseball field, and a builder who built the Girls Long Term Facility (estimated at about $500,000) for the shelter at no cost to house 8 girls.
These kids deserve our support and there are plenty of ways you can help too.
Most importantly, they need financial support, they have a big need for volunteers to serve in several capacities including mentors, they need more businesses to participate in their “Safe Place” program, and they need other items donated such as gift cards from the big box stores, grocery stores, and entertainment to cleaning, hygiene and laundry supplies, to even X-box and PS2 games.
Here is my challenge to you, to businesses and to churches throughout Gwinnett County and abroad: Step up and help the Gwinnett Children’s Shelter give these kids the love and support many of us were so lucky to experience when we were their age.
Call the Gwinnett Children’s Shelter at 678-546-8770 or visit their website at http://www.gwinnettchildrenshelter.org to see what part you can play in providing a better life for those who probably deserve it the most.
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Who pays for 287 (g)?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
I’ll just come right out and say it —287(g) is nothing more than an excuse for the federal government not to do it’s job.
While I applaud the county for taking an active part in the few options they have dealing with illegal immigration. Illegal immigration IS a federal issue. The fact that ICE provides such a program for local governments who take the bait just further enables the feds not to do their jobs by not securing the borders and not enforcing immigration policies already on the book.
Cha-ching! Drizzle-drizzle-drizzle. That would be your tax dollars going down the drain.
There are plenty of political obstacles and financial hoops Gwinnett has to jump through in order to even be accepted into the program, but there is one thing we should all understand very clearly… while it will certainly have some impact, 287(g) is NOT the answer to the county’s illegal immigration problem.
Sheriff Conway did manage (after being used as a political ping-pong ball in election year “I can do anything you can do better” antics) to leap one of the major hurdles on the path through the application process. Money.
The Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners approved the funding for the 18 additional officers Conway requested for Gwinnett to efficiently operate the program. Now the pressure rests solely on Sheriff Conway’s shoulders to make this happen.
Cha-ching! A million dollars for officers to process everyone through the program, vehicles and equipment per year.
Don’t think that 18 officers or the additional funds are necessary? I know… I know… Cobb County did it with officers already on the payroll. Allow me to do a little comparison for you of the two systems that makes the answer pretty self-explanatory:
Cobb County Gwinnett County
of arrests in 2007 36,500 39,000 of “foreign nationals” arrested in 2007 5,500 13,000Of those 13,000 arrested, up from 9,400 in 2006 by the way, some of them may have been arrested as many as six times. Another staggering number: 59.000, the number of “foreign nationals” arrested from 2000-2007 in Gwinnett. Keep in mind the majority of them are minor traffic violations.
The county still has to address another major hurdle — the 400 inmates currently sleeping on the floor— a mandate via the American Corrections Association, to enter the program.
Cha-ching! Approximately up to $6.6 million a year if the county is forced to house out all those inmates to other facilities. That amount could potentially increase to over $10 million a year by 2012.
Sheriff Conway has told me that the extensive application process is already underway and barring no further hurdles 287(g) can be in place as soon as October.
You asked for it. Get your check books ready.
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