County Caregivers Consider 'Times Like These'

Caregivers from around Montgomery County took time out on Wednesday to ponder the everyday challenges they encounter while providing emergency assistance to clients and to honor their own during the 15th  Caregivers Gathering at  in Rockville.

About 100 caregivers attended this year's gathering, which focused on the theme of "Compassionate Caregiving in Times Like These."

A panel discussion focusing on "Ethical Issues in Emergency Assistance" included a presentation by the Rev. Dr. Steven Willsey, a crisis care coordinator with Adventist Community Services. Willsey's presentation, "Mission: Serving or Evangelizing?" discussed the fine line that faith-based social service providers walk between providing comfort and espousing religious beliefs. Willsey said that while his training is as an evangelical, the ethics of his program are not to evangelize.

Martha Cooper, a domestic violence survivor who graduates from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C., next week, recounted her experience of trying to find spiritual guidance as she looked for a way out of an abusive marriage. While some clergy members read scripture and reinforced the message that divorce is wrong in the eyes of God, Cooper said she found the strength to leave her husband when one minister told her that she should do what was best for her and that he'd support her, whatever her decision.

County Executive Isiah Leggett also addressed the luncheon, telling caregivers that he is facing a $33 million "challenge" to the budget for social service providers as the county faces pressure from county employees to fund pay and benefit increases. Leggett (D) said county employees recently suggested that cutting $33 million from social services could fund the increase. But he said that he would not take such measures unless forced to by a judge.

"That will in fact solve the challenge, but that is not a county that I see that I want to represent," he said.

The Rev. Mark Farr, who recently took the helm as president of The Faith & Politics Institute on Capitol Hill after serving as senior faith director at the Points of Light Institute, urged the audience to reject the "false narrative" that government is the problem, saying that St. Paul espoused the idea that "government, at its very heart, is the idea that we should care for each other."

Farr left providers with three points to ponder: First, he said that "we should trust those closest to the problem" and recognize that caregivers know what's best and that the public shouldn't let politicians tell them otherwise. Second, he said that he believes in the "great man or woman theory" that from ordinary people rise great leaders, such as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. or John Lewis — one of Farr's idols — who walked with King in the civil rights movement and who now represents Georgia in Congress. "If you want to change the world in some better way, if you want to change the narrative of 'times like these,' it is up to you to do it," Farr said. Finally, he urged providers, as they "pull bodies from the river downstream," to remember the challenges faced by the people they serve and how they "got in the river upstream."

Dozens of caregivers were recognized for their contributions to the community, including Interfaith's Emergency Assistance Coalition, Manna Food Center and Charles L. "Chuck" Short, the former director of the county's Department of Health and Human Services who now oversees social services as a special assistant to Leggett.

Short told community providers that "all I ever did was try to help you do your work" and thanked the churches, congregations and volunteers who make up the safety net for the county's poor.

"You all know the people who are suffering in this county — and there are thousands of them," Short said. "You are the ones who pull cans [of food] together, clothes together, patch together all the community services."