Giving Back How older Ohioans overcame age—and poverty—to serve their communities: The story of SCSEP
Marietta
“I thought I was secure for the rest of my life.”
Gerry Gilliam’s divorce settlement had been relatively generous. She had fallen in love with another man and had gone into the real estate business with him in this riverside city of 15,000. Her three children were solidly launched. She owned property. She had $250,000 in the bank. But in 1981, she discovered that her lover had taken all her money. “I was out on the street.” Then, with a wry grin, she adds: “Women are trusting.”
Gilliam was 40 years old at the time. She began a 12-year odyssey that took her to a secretarial position in Albany, N.Y., to an assistant-to-the-president job in Florida, and then, in 1993, back to Marietta. She had lived there as a young wife and mother. Now she was back, to live near a daughter.
For a while, she worked on a newsletter for the county commissioners. “But I couldn’t financially make it.” At 62, as soon as the law allows, she applied for Social Security and began drawing $674 a month. That proved to be less than she needed to live. “’My God,’ I said, ‘What do I do now?’ ”
The answer came with a 20-year-old woman Gilliam had helped.
“It was 2:30 in the morning,” Gilliam recalls. “I met her at the hospital. She had no shoes, no coat, no nothing.” The woman was pregnant, and she had an 18-month-old child with her. Her husband had just beaten her—not for the first time.
Gerry Gilliam arranged temporary shelter through the battered women’s program where she works on staff now, thanks to SCSEP.
The woman Gilliam helped had “no visible injuries, but a lot of fear.” Gilliam had special sympathy for the woman for a very personal reason. She, too, had been a victim of domestic violence. “It means you can relate better.
“Personally, I can view things differently from people who haven’t been there.”
Gilliam has worked as a volunteer coordinator at the battered women’s shelter for more than two years. She takes home $384 every two weeks, which pays the real estate taxes, the house insurance, the car insurance. “I have a $333 house payment, so you can see how far Social Security would go.”
The money is only some of the value Gilliam gets from her job. “Giving—that’s just a part of me,” she says. “I’d do it for another 20 years if they’ll let me.”
Gilliam needed to push herself into the SCSEP program at first. She had heard about it only accidentally, by word of mouth. She had always found work, and had long been self-reliant. She didn’t think of herself as a ward of the government.
Yet her early choices were creating hurdles as she moved into her 60s. She had married at 19. She never went to college. She had a child at 20, another at 22, a third at 24. Her husband was on active duty with the U.S. Army, so they moved constantly, which limited her employment options. She first came to Marietta because her husband was assigned there.
Gerry Gilliam admits that she is “a little calloused, maybe,” about what life has served up to her. But she believes that “if you have enough drive, there’s a hand that will reach out.” In her case, that hand belonged to the Community Action Program Corporation of Washington-Morgan Counties, which operates the SCSEP program in Marietta.
“I don’t think I can stress enough how good (SCSEP participants) feel about giving back to the community,” says David Brightbill, executive director. “They often bring a compassion, a sort of aura. They have a strong work ethic. They always took responsibility. It came with that age. They understand that people count on them.”
When Gerry Gilliam met the battered 20-year-old mother, she told her: “There will be a place for you. Don’t worry.” Gilliam smiles and adds: “I guess this program has meant the same for me.”
Betty Offenberger had trusted, too.
Her husband was a truck driver for a local meatpacking company. He was a solid provider. Betty supplemented the family income by taking in ironing. They had five children.
“I just thought, ‘Well, we’d be together always,’ ” Offenberger recalls. “There wouldn’t be anything to worry about.”
But when she was 61, Betty Offenberger’s husband died. She drew his Social Security, but survivor benefits are far smaller than one’s own would be, and Offenberger wasn’t old enough to qualify for her own. Her check was for $260 a month.
Still, she managed. She did not—and still does not—own a car. She gets around by bus. She does most of her own home repairs. Although all her children and grandchildren live in Marietta, she never asked for help. “I didn’t want to be a burden.”
What she did ask for was a place in the SCSEP program.
Through SCSEP she trained as a cook in a school, and later as a helper at a senior meal center. She left the program after she was hired as a clerical worker at the local Social Security Administration office. She has worked there ever since. She is now 79.
“I refill the copying paper, I pick up all the shredding, I pick up and sort the outgoing mail. Then I sort the incoming mail,” Offenberger said. She takes home about $165 after taxes every two weeks in addition to $605 per month from Social Security.
“They don’t know what they’d do without me,” she says, with a wide, slow smile. “And I don’t know what they’d do without me.” Offenberger is especially glad to be doing community-based work in the city where she was born and raised. “Marietta’s always been friendly.”
Friendly, but ailing. The city has a median annual household income of $29,272, according to the most recent Census Bureau statistics. The national average is $41,994. Although the median house price is $73,300—a bargain in any big city—nearly 37 percent of Marietta’s residents rent their homes.
Only 13 of Ohio’s 78 counties lost a larger percentage of their population from 2000 to 2003 than Washington County where Marietta is located. (Marietta itself lost 7 percent.) The federal government has officially designated it as one of 29 economically endangered Appalachian areas. Although the Ohio River provides some commerce— and lots of beauty-- Marietta has lost manufacturing jobs and residents steadily for more than 75 years.
SCSEP keeps the older residents — and local spirit — afloat.
“For so many people, it’s a chance to be with people, a chance to do something worthwhile,” says David Brightbill. “They can see the community valuing what they do.”
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