Melissa McWilliams didn’t grow up poor, but the single mother said she knows what it’s like to struggle, and that helps her relate to the clients she serves through the Community Action Program for Central Arkansas.
“I had an amazing childhood,” she said. “I didn’t grow up poor or low-income. … We paid our bills, and we never needed for anything, but I didn’t come from money, and I know what it’s like to struggle, and that makes it a lot easier when you know what it’s like.”
Those struggles include her mother dying of cancer at age 59, McWilliams’ brother, a decorated Iraqi War veteran, committing suicide two years later, and her raising two children after getting divorced in her early 20s.
McWilliams, director of community programs, grew up in Bauxite and now lives in Conway. Her mother, Darlene Allen, a sergeant with the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office, died six years ago.
“She was an extremely wonderful role model; she was the best woman I’ve every known. She was taken way too soon,” McWilliams said. “She was a tough lady; that was sure. Nobody messed with my mama.”
McWilliams’ father still works at the same job he’s had since he was 16. Her brother, John Allen, did two tours in Iraq, she said, and received a Purple Heart. “He was an amazing man,” she said. McWilliams said her brother had “severe” post-traumatic stress disorder, “and he battled it for quite some time. While he came home, he never came all the way home.
“I don’t go out in the community and advocate, … but I believe suicide prevention is something that needs to be discussed, especially among our veterans.”
McWilliams said that from the time she was 4 years old, she tagged along in the summers with her mother to the sheriff’s office.
When McWilliams was 20 and lived in Sardis, she started working as a civilian at the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office — in the mailroom, the laundry room and the property room. When she turned 21, she became a deputy and worked in the office for 10 years.
She and her boys moved to Conway in 2000 while she was still working at the sheriff’s office.
“I liked it because that’s what I grew up around. I was going to be transferred to a night shift, and I was a single mom, and I couldn’t have someone else raising my kids,” she said.“I started working at a local day care until I could find something better. I loved it.”
McWilliams received child-development associate credentials and worked at the child care center for four years.
“My children were no longer age eligible for day care. They aged out, so I had to go find something that paid more money because I wasn’t getting free child care,” she said.
McWilliams applied for a job at CAPCA to work as a paraprofessional in its Head Start program. CAPCA is a private nonprofit organization that helps low-income families by providing services and education, she said.
When her future employer saw her resume, McWilliams was recommended to be a site coordinator instead. She supervised all the Head Start centers, which included 10 at that time.
“I do not have a college degree; I have obtained everything on my work ethic alone,” she said. “Whenever you don’t have a college degree but you have people see your value, that gives you so much confidence.”
She continued to get promoted at CAPCA, and from 2009-12, she worked as the housing director. Not only did she oversee the weatherization program; she picked up tools and helped rehabilitate homes.
“I did like it because I was able to work in the field, and I was raised to be a hard worker,” she said.
In 2012, the agency combined the community services department and housing department to create community programs, and she was hired as the director.
“This is truly my calling; I love helping people,” she said.
McWilliams supervises 13 programs, including utility assistance, a food pantry and a case-management program to determine why a family might be in poverty and help them get out of it.
CAPCA serves more than 18,000 low-income people a year through its programs, McWilliams said. She said every program CAPCA offers has an education component.
“We’re not just trying to give them a Band-Aid and a check and help them do this real quickly; we’re trying to find out what the problem is so they won’t need assistance from us anymore,” she said. “I tell my team, ‘Your goal is to try to work yourself out of a job.’ While you know you’re not ever going to work yourself out of a job, that should be your goal.”
McWilliams knows the reasons for poverty are varied and complex.
“A lot of it is lack of education; some of it is circumstances. The majority of it is generational poverty. Whenever you grow up in poverty, you believe that’s pretty much how it is. They don’t have support or someone to say, ‘You’re better than this.’ Not that being in poverty makes you less of a person, but you want them to see, ‘You deserve it.’ You just have to give them a little bit of empowerment, and they can soar. It’s amazing what you see these people do.”
She said a “phenomenal” program that CAPCA has is a savings program, the Individual Development Account. Families who meet the requirements, including having a child in the home who is 18 or younger and completing financial-literacy training, put money each month into a savings account. When they have saved $667 and they’ve been in the program for six months, the funds can be used to pay toward a home renovation, start a small business or pay for their secondary education. CAPCA will kick in $2,000 to pay the organization.
“We just had somebody use it because they were going to lose their homeowners insurance because they had a roof leak, so they did their savings to repair their roof,” she said.
When CAPCA helps someone with tuition, the children learn the value of education, too.
“You just helped break that cycle of poverty,” she said.
McWilliams said her goal is to strengthen and expand some of CAPCA’s existing programs.
“We do a community-needs assessment every year, and we don’t have a program currently that serves our older youth, as far as once they get out of Head Start.”
She would like to start an after-school or before-school program for older children, she said.
McWilliams said low-income individuals or families can get help from a variety of agencies, if CAPCA can’t
address their needs.
“We live in a phenomenal community, and we have over 200 community partners. If we can’t meet their need, we can refer them over to a community partner. They come in like they’re broken down and beaten, but if they are in a program that gives them empowerment, they leave with confidence.”
She knows that from experience, she said.
“That’s another thing that’s rewarding — I’ve been there,” McWilliams said. “I know what it’s like to have somebody not just to hand you something, but to give you empowerment.”
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.