BY ROGER SMITH
MOUNTAIN CITIZEN
INEZ — Family Resource Youth Service Centers (FRYSC) within Martin County help students and families solve problems and overcome barriers to education. Directors from the county’s five public schools shared their multifaceted roles at the Kiwanis luncheon Thursday at Shufflin Café.
Kara Beth Marcum from Martin County High School, Jennifer Alley from Martin County Middle School, Marlena Slone from Eden Elementary, Andrea Muncy from Inez Elementary and Amanda Stepp from Warfield Elementary provided insight into FRYSCs programs.
Marcum explained that the acronym “FRYSC” stands for Family Resource and Youth Service Center and is two-part.
“At the elementary schools, it’s Family Resource Centers, and they advocate for families and have services geared more toward families and younger children,” Marcum said. “The Youth Service Centers, which are middle school and high school, service our youth. I deal with families also, of course, but I deal a lot with students one-on-one because my students are older.”
Answering questions posed by Kiwanis member John Triplett, Marcum explained, “Our overall goal is to alleviate barriers within the school.”
Noting that different areas have different barriers, Marcum said, “Ours are more food insecurity, clothing insecurity and basic needs.”
While a major part of the FRYSC work in Martin County is providing food, shoes, clothing and school supplies, the centers provide several other services.
“We have biweekly, monthly at least, programming in our schools for self-esteem, suicide prevention, drug prevention, reading and literacy, safety and health, and college and career readiness. It’s endless,” said Marcum. “This is what we do day to day, but we will do anything we have to do for our kids.”
For Alley at the middle school, food insecurity is the No. 1 barrier this school year.
“There are kids,12- and 13-year-olds, coming in and saying, ‘We have no food at home. Can you help?’” Alley said.
The centers employ various means of getting food to the homes, including home visits, pickups at the centers, and older students taking supplies home on the bus.
The FRYSC directors discussed the hunger relief Backpack Program that ships food directly to families. The centers collaborate with the nonprofit RAMP during the school year to provide food to referred students each Friday. The summer Backpack Program collaborates with Backpack Buddies, a volunteer program in West Virginia that provides boxes of food to 40-50 families countywide for five weeks during the summer. Food items include shelf staples such as peanut butter, cereal bars and ravioli.
Marcum said the centers focus their Backpack Program on students whose parents are not always available to cook for them.
“We have people who will have beans and potatoes no matter what, but some kids just have to put something in the microwave,” said Marcum.
FRYSCs are funded through the state based on the number of students enrolled in the free lunch program. They rely on grants and help from others to fill the void. Children Incorporated (CI) provides funding for a certain number of children each month and has sponsors worldwide. CI sponsors various FRYSC programs, follows students through the grade ranks, and even pays for some to attend college. Children are chosen for sponsorship through referrals by teachers, bus drivers, cafeteria workers and others.
“We fill out a form and send it to Children Incorporated for approval,” said Marcum.
Another sponsor, Appalachia Reach Out (ARO), works with the Pallottine Foundation to secure grant help. ARO is involved in several FRYSC programs and provides home repairs upon FRYSC referral.
Slone said, “We do quite a bit of work with ARO.”
Slone also talked about FRYSC’s Grandparents as Parents (GAP) program, a monthly meeting that has grown to about 15 participants.
“We bring in resources for them, have different speakers, serve them food and they get prizes,” she said. “They get to interact and talk about things. Some of them don’t have anybody to talk to about what they’re going through and how to do things.”
Marcum mentioned the grandparents have made friends and look forward to the monthly meetings.
“For some, it’s the only socializing they get,” said Marcum.
Stepp shared that MCHS attendance clerk Kim Smith attended a GAP meeting and walked the grandparents through the steps to use the parent portal to check their children’s school attendance and other information.
“That was a really big eye-opener,” Stepp said. “They didn’t even realize that was an app. They didn’t know what an app was.”
Responding to a question from Kiwanis president Melissa Phelps about FRYSC’s “Bedder Homes” program, Slone explained that the program operates on a CI grant to provide beds, bedding and other household items to students and families in need.
Stepp noted that the FRYSC directors noticed a need for the Bedder Homes program through students’ responses when asked what they wanted for Christmas: “‘Can I have a pillow? Can I have a blanket?’”
Martin County has served over 100 students through the program during the last four years.
A Kiwanis special guest, Martin County Judge/Executive Lon Lafferty asked the directors to share how their drug and suicide prevention programs work. Slone commented that FRYSC brings in guest speakers at the elementary level, such as Heather Norris from Judy’s Kids.
“She does internet safety,” said Slone. “She has four or five different things.”
Marcum explained that at the high school level, Norris addresses child abuse prevention. At the same time, the high school uses the Green Dot program through Mountain Comprehensive Care, which covers topics such as dating, relationships and suicide prevention, including a suicide prevention assembly.
“It goes through statistics, then gets personal because kids ask questions,” said Marcum of the suicide prevention assembly. “It’s something that needs to be talked about—that a lot of people are afraid to talk about.”
Moving on, Marcum emphasized that the FRYSCs are “on the parents’ side.”
She added, “We tell the parents, ‘We’re not like social services or the attendance person. We’re here to help you.’ We’re advocating for the parents and the children. That’s the goal.”
One program that helps bring families together is FYRSC’s Planting Seeds of Hope, which provides families with garden supplies and seeds. The centers developed the program following the coronavirus shutdown.
“The idea behind it was to get back to our roots and bring families together – parents, grandparents and children,” said Marcum. “The program has grown each year since.”
Phelps told the directors that Kiwanis would be glad to help in any way.
“They really are the unsung heroes of the community,” Phelps said, adding that the directors stepped up during natural disasters, such as floods, to ensure the community had water, food and cleaning supplies. “They’re always the ones when you need an army.”
Judge Lafferty invited the directors to attend a fiscal court meeting and said the county would provide any help it possibly could.
Kiwanis special guest Donna McClure, senior field representative in the 5th Congressional District for U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell, shared that Mission Hope out of Knoxville reached out to her about Martin County.
“Their executive director had been to Martin County,” McClure said. “He was shocked when some of the students meeting with him were telling him about their poor water quality. He reached out about trying to get water into the area. I mentioned to him that he could go through the family resource and youth service centers. I also mentioned that gallons of water would be better than just bottles to get out to the homes.”
McClure talked about programs that the Berea-based Feeding Kentucky is working on. One is Kentucky Hunters for the Hungry, a program that alleviates hunger and malnutrition through hunters who donate deer meat.
“The USDA will buy that deer meat and make jerky sticks,” said McClure.
Feeding Kentucky also has a program in which it purchases produce that local farmers cannot sell to markets and then has the produce available for free for families through schools.
Another program McClure mentioned is God’s Pantry.
“They’re looking at putting a location here,” stated McClure, adding that she could provide the FRYSC directors with contact information for Feeding Kentucky and God’s Pantry and coordinate supplies. She also invited the directors to contact Senator McConnell’s office for assistance with federal grants.
Stepp responded, “We have so many people invested in our program, which makes our job easier.”
Alley agreed, “We can do this stuff because we have help from the outside.”
The directors had plans to pick up toothbrush donations Friday at Haven of Rest. They welcome donations of other in-demand items: coats, tee shirts, leggings and hoodies.
Since July, the Martin County FRYSCs have provided holiday assistance to 400 children, food assistance to 1,028 students, referred 75 students for mental health, assisted 375 students with hygiene supplies, mentored 92 students, completed 110 home visits, provided 423 pairs of shoes, helped 1,100 students with school supplies, helped 500 students in the school backpack program and 290 in the summer backpack program, supported 8-10 grandparents through Grandparents As Parents, provided clothing to 533 students, served 752 students at the Back-to-School Bash, and worked with 50 families through Planting Seeds of Hope.