In The Beginning, There Was Need.

The Origin of Our Ministry

by Dr. Carolyn Graham

It’s a simple but compelling story that in retrospect, reminds me of how the scripts of our lives are guided and lead us to do the work that we were sent to planet earth to do. The Mary Elizabeth House Inc., A Ministry, was born in my spirit in 2006, when I mentored a young, single mother who was on the brink of aging-out of the child welfare system. 

I had worked closely with child welfare issues while serving as deputy mayor for the city of Washington, DC in early 2000, but many of the issues of the work, especially with young, single mothers, escaped my full understanding until I worked one-on-one with a single mother, Peggy, who was on the verge of aging out of the child welfare system with no place to go.  

Peggy was a young woman I mentored. She was one of multiple siblings who had been placed in the public’s care because of their mother’s addiction to crack cocaine, during that period in the District when the crack drug flowed into a suffering, poor, Black community like a rushing, uncontrollable storm.  Peggy’s family was just one of many poor, Black female headed families mired in poverty and family obligations that overwhelmed them.  Crack offered a temporary escape, to a place where nothing mattered, not even children. 

Peggy was special. She had a 9-month old son, and dreams of college and work.  We had arranged a dinner date to celebrate her departure from the child welfare system, and her 21st birthday. I picked her up on the day of her birthday for dinner and shopping for an outfit that she would wear to an upcoming job interview. After she was in the car, I noticed that she seemed down.  Instead of being excited about turning 21, and finally being on her own, she was very sad, and almost sullen. 

After a while of silence, I asked her what was wrong, and how she felt about no longer being in the “system”?  Her response surprised me, but spoke volumes about the fear and confusion that now defined her reality.  She had been taken care of by the system for a number of years, but she was now 21 years of age—a young adult who was responsible for everything associated with her and her son’s lives. She was totally unprepared and had no one to turn to if she faltered while on her own. She had no job, and her new housing was not in the safest part of the city. She shared her anger about what she felt the system had done to her. It had cared for her for all those years, made certain that she had housing, food, clothing—all that she needed, but now that she was 21, the rug was pulled from under her, and the child welfare agency simply said, “Poof, you are on your own!” 

I felt her fear, her tears, and her unreadiness to enter the world on her own without the skills needed to live a meaningful life. I was so touched by her story that I knew that I had to do something to change the trajectories of other, young, Black women, who faced Peggy’s outcomes. The Mary Elizabeth House Inc., A Ministry was conceived at that moment. Birthing it would take another six years.