While reading the July 2018 issue and the article on Ray, Beverly Maunus noted Ray and Lena had been raising their grandchildren for a number of years. She had recently moved to McKinney for the same purpose and reached out to Lena for advice and they became great friends.
Realizing they were not the only ones affected by this shadowed epidemic, they started gathering information. The stats show an alarming number of grandparents now having to raise a second family. There are approximately 3 million of these wonderful people raising 9 to 10 million grandchildren.
So, imagine you have raised your children to adulthood, carried all of the burdens for those expenses, are ready for a great future and retirement—only to learn that your child, for reasons from addictions to death, has left children that need to be cared for. The options for their children are to be placed in a foster home or be taken in by family, frequently the grandparents. Foster homes are not always a bad thing, but there are issues, including the fact that about half only take the kids in for financial gain. Approximately 450,000 children now reside in foster homes.
It is both a burden and a blessing. Luckily, for Lena and Beverly, their incomes have allowed them to at least survive without devastation. But they have come to realize how many tackle the financial burdens without the ability to sustain their life in any way close to what they had planned. And that realization caused Lena and Beverly to want to help them through this program.
How do they see the program Grand Love helping? By raising money for those who truly need financial help. Their first money-raising event was a successful dinner held in October. Future dinners are planned, and they plan for their first gala in 2020.
Their hope is that some of the local businesses and blessed individuals will get involved and donate items needed for the children being raised under these circumstances. School systems might want to consider foregoing the costs for uniforms or equipment needed for one of these kids to participate in a desired program.
The next big step is to get laws changed. After all, grandparents save the state of Texas about $6.2 billion a year versus the cost of foster care.
These grandchildren, nor their grandparents, didn’t ask for this situation, and great support is required for both. Imagine the feeling of abandonment these children must have. Imagine the financial and emotional stress on the grandparents.