Moms Get Their Night

Rarely-recognized moms who keep families going received the thanks they deserve in Newhallville, with a party, prizes, and information about how to connect more with the school and their community.

They received it at annual night of appreciation this past Thursday night at Lincoln-Bassett Community School. It was the fourth annual event.

In the cafeteria, decked out with hearts in red-paper cutouts and pink balloons, moms sat down with their children. Over the next two hours, they’d be pampered with a cooked meal, cupcakes, raffle prizes and makeovers.

“It feels good to be here, because so often as moms, we’re overwhelmed,” said Veronica Gilbert, a mother of two who took home a $10 McDonald’s gift card from the raffle. ​“We’re doing so much for our children, and we don’t always feel the appreciation. We make sure our kids are clean and fed. Who else notices that? Who else sees and hears us? For them [at the school] to say, ​‘I’m watching you,’ means so much to me.”

The dinner’s open to any female in a student’s life, including moms, grandmas, aunts, godmothers and ​“mother figures” too, said Keith Young, the school’s parent engagement coordinator. Even one great-grandmother showed up. Young times the event for February so that it captures the feeling of Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day combined.

Some dads tried to crash the event. Young stopped them at the cafeteria door. He didn’t send most of them home, though. Instead, he directed them back to the kitchen, where they tossed on aprons and carried out trays of meals to serve the moms.

The main message? ​“We appreciate you,” Young said.

It’s a sentiment that could be sent home in a child’s handwriting on a piece of construction paper, but Young wanted to make a special evening and use it as a chance to get parents inside the building.

He came up with the idea for a dinner when he arrived at Lincoln-Bassett in 2013. He wanted to find new ways to engage moms in the school. Early that year, he’d struggled to get parents to come to educational events. He hosted seminars on how to clear a criminal record or earn a high-school equivalency, but few people showed up.

With the dinners, Young can get parents in the room, then drop the same information from his seminars as the moms dig into plates of chicken and rolls. He said it’s not just about offering free food; the mothers want to be in the school, bonding with their children and meeting other parents. But they often just don’t have the time.

“We pretty much trick them,” Young joked.

On Thursday evening, a university employee shared healthful meal plans, while a former high school dropout talked about the programs that helped him turn his turned his life around. A nurse took blood pressure readings with a stethoscope.

“I know your children and your man stress you out,” he told the group, ​“so why not check?”

The message often got through.

Senetra Lamar, a single mom raising eight kids, said she was enjoying herself, particularly as she waited for the raffle numbers to match those on her orange ticket stub. As she listened, she heard about the GED program offered by the school. She said she planned to enroll.

Activists worked the room, too, sharing information about their efforts to fight poverty.

There was Mothers for Justice, which helps low-income moms tell politicians about their experience with safety-net programs like Medicaid, food stamps, affordable housing and prison re-entry. Latesha McClain, the chapter leader, said she hoped to reach a younger generation at the dinner, helping to train new leaders who could take over from the grandmothers who’d been pillars of the community.

“This is epic,” she said, smiling at the room.

Another group, Mothers of Victims Equality (MoVE) distributed a few bags of hygienic products. Packed with toothbrushes and deodorant, sponges and bleach, the supplies are often the first items a parent might skip as her bank account zeroes out, said Corrinna Martin, the group’s founder.

Martin started MoVE in 2013 as a way to combat domestic violence, just a month after losing her daughter in a homicide. At Thursday night’s dinner, fumbling with the microphone, she shared that she’d lost a second daughter to domestic violence in 2017.

To end the abuse, she said, women need to look out for each other, paying close attention to younger girls just starting to date.

“It starts in our homes first. We are our first teachers, our first advocates, the first line of defense that our children have,” she said. ​“If we want to invest in your youth, it starts with us, and to do that, we have to make sure that we’re okay. And that’s why I so wholeheartedly believe that when there’s ways organizations can eliminate stress for us moms, emotionally and mentally support us moms, then we will be able to be more actively involved.”

“I’m here today, not as a mother who has lost, because I know you see my pain. But I’m talking to you as a mother who wants to do everything with her organization in a more proactive way, before it gets to that point,” Martin continued. ​“Who else will be better to help someone in the struggle than someone who’s already gone through it? I don’t have much, but I do have what I have. And what I have is yours. If we start on that path of sharing, then our community will be far greater.”

After she spoke, several mothers came up and embraced her. Carla Britt, the mother of an 8‑year-old who’s active in the Boys & Girls Club, pressed her in a long hug. Britt said later she wants to help Martin share her message, so the women can all ​“get some empowerment.”

Young asked the moms to fill out a survey about what they need from Lincoln-Bassett. ​“We are a community school,” he told the group. ​“Tell us what you need. Let us know what more we can do.”

Even though Young had an agenda for the evening, with loads of information he hoped the moms would take home, the dinner felt like a celebration, too.

Desiree Emenyonce, a mother of three, said she felt loved. ​“We do a lot. Even when you’re sick you’ve still got to be a mom,” she said. ​“Sometimes our families can’t say [they appreciate us], but they show it.”

Through the evening, kids played tag as moms chatted with each other. Raffle winners yelled out as they nabbed makeup kits, tote bags and gift-cards, and they smiled as they dug into massive cupcakes loaded with frosting.

Over in one corner, Allison Perry got a full make-over from Rosetta Washington, a volunteer with the Children’s Community Programs of Connecticut and a Mary Kay saleswoman. Her boyfriend worked in the kitchen, while she spent time with her girls. After the makeover, she took pictures with her family. Someone told her she looked beautiful.

“We started here two months ago, and I love it,” she said. ​“It’s friendly here, and they make me feel special.”