Fighting for children and their rights has long been a passion for Carol Gregg and she has spent most of her adult life working and volunteering her services to fulfill that passion.
These days, Gregg finds herself at somewhat of a loss. Disabled due to a heart condition, she was forced to give up her volunteer work as a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate), working with the juvenile court system to represent children in foster care in an eight-county area that included Madison.
But now Gregg, who lives near Ila, has found a way to combine something she loves and can still do (crochet) to provide for the children who remain on her mind every day.
“I think the whole system is overwhelmed right now,” Gregg said, who still keeps up with what’s going on with foster children in the court system these days. “At any given time there are 15 to 20 children waiting on a CASA volunteer.” In addition to needing more CASAs to advocate for kids in court, the juvenile court system is woefully short of foster homes.
Crocheting is always something Gregg has enjoyed and it’s not a new thing to incorporate that into her work for children. She worked at Prevent Child Abuse Georgia for 20 years before becoming a CASA volunteer and sometimes made blankets for the babies and small children on whose cases she worked.
Now, mostly confined at home, she has found that as her health deteriorates her other hobbies like reading and doing crosswords have even become difficult.
“Besides fatigue that cause me to have to rest a lot, I have also developed migraines and chronic headaches,” she said. Crocheting on the other hand, has become so second nature that it’s almost a strictly tactile occupation for her.
“I use the same patterns, so I can even lie on my daybed and just work on a blanket without even really looking at it,” she said. “It’s almost automatic.”
With her most recent health setbacks this year, Gregg decided instead of feeling sorry for herself she was she was going find a way to use her talent in a big way.
“I don’t just like lying around, I like to be busy and so I wanted to think about something I could do that would actually benefit somebody else and crocheting was the natural thing,” she said.
Gregg has set a goal for herself. Right now, there is an average of about 50 infants and newborns in DFACS care that also have, or need, a CASA. Gregg plans to make enough blankets for each of those babies to have one, along with some newborn sets that include matching car seat covers by September when CASAS have their in-service training.
And also this fall, she plans to begin crocheting afghans for the older kids and teens who are in foster care or who are institutionalized in state custody.
There’s only one thing — all that yarn and accessories to store and package the blankets in has gotten expensive. Gregg has found she can’t do it on her own and has decided to ask the community for help.
She and Northeast GA CASA Coordinator Melissa Barrett have put their heads together and decided to make up information packets with information on the program and a letter of recommendation from Barrett.
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