Healthy Grandparents Program: It takes a village to raise a child

As the Healthy Grandparents Program approaches its 26th year in the Augusta area, many have helped make it a success for the 660 families, 911 grandparents and more than 1,300 grandchildren who have participated.

HGP was established at Augusta University’s College of Nursing in January 1999 to provide support to grandparents and great-grandparents raising their grandchildren, ages 0-17, in parent-absent homes.

The program’s main goal is to support grandparent caregivers by helping them provide a stable home for their grandchildren.

Every year, the Healthy Grandparents Program offers children in Richmond and Columbia counties medical physicals, backpacks and supplies for school. In 2024, the College of Nursing held a health clinic for grandparents and provided monthly support group meetings for them.

“The support we have received from so many in the community expands, not only to the support we are able to provide to the families, but also the number of families and grandchildren we are able to provide that support to,” said Mike Patton, HGP program coordinator who has been with the program since its inception.

Thriving with the community

Since the program began, it has received more than $125,000 in individual and group donations to the HGP university foundation account. Those funds have been used to purchase items such as Christmas gifts, bookbags and school supplies, payment for summer camps and/or childcare for working, single grandmothers, and after-school enrichment activities for the grandchildren.

Community partners have been integral from inception. A Christmas party is held each year, providing families with a catered dinner from TBonz and gifts for the children.

“The first year we had the party, we only had a dozen families in the program and the gifts were provided by faculty at the College of Nursing,” Patton said. “For the past 10 years, more than 50 families and 100 children have attended the party, and each child receives at least three gifts, all of which are provided by individual donors from the community including employees from across AU’s campus.”

Patton noted, in addition to the party, individuals and organizations like TBonz, Turner Padget Graham & Laney, P.A., Hull Barrett Law Firm, Communication Station, the Augusta-Richmond County IT Department, United Advanced Practice Registered Nurse-Augusta Chapter, Queensborough National Bank and Chick-fil-A in Evans adopt a family for Christmas and purchase additional gifts for the children, as well as gift cards for the grandparents to local grocery stores.

Henry Scheer, co-owner of TBonz, said they were helping with Camp Rainbow when he first met Patton. Scheer felt a connection with Patton and his passion for HGP and has been donating resources for more than a decade.

“He really wants to help these kids and the grandparents,” Scheer said. “Everything about it was good, and a majority of the time we were just feeding off his energy.”

TBonz has provided food for the holidays and let HGP use its facilities to hand out gifts during the pandemic years. Scheer said it’s been important to them to help AU, as well as the Augusta-area community, because they’ve “been really good to us and helped us through thick and through thin.

“We’re just glad to be able to give a little back,” he added. “To get the thank you notes the kids would send to us, the hugs from the grandparents, we were never expecting that. The interaction and the smiles we have gotten over the years have been worth every penny.”

Carol Gardner, charity committee chairperson and president-elect for Merchants Association of Columbia County, said the association has been donating since 2015.  

According to Gardner, association members strongly advocated for HGP because they felt they needed financial support, aware of a cultural shift that put the burden on grandparents to raise their grandchildren. For Gardner and MACC, it’s a worthy community need.

“I’ve attended two or three get-togethers for the HGP volunteers, putting together school supply packages, and getting a meal together with the grandparents and the kids. I was impressed by the fellowship, the relationships and support that not only the volunteers offer, but that the grandparents and kids get from the other families,” Gardner said. “I was convinced of the need and the value of the services and venue provided, and MACC is very happy to make the donations.”

Finding legal assistance

AU Professor Emeritus Barbara Woodring, EdD, wrote the original grant to receive funding for HGP, which was approved in October 1998. She modeled it after Project Healthy Grandparents that Georgia State University’s College of Nursing started in 1995.

Woodring recruited Patton, who started at AU in January 1999. He contacted Georgia State’s staff to learn about their families’ needs and the services they offered.

They had a partnership with Atlanta Legal Aid to help their grandparents with custody, and the Kilpatrick & Stockton Law Firm in Atlanta assisted grandparents with adoption. Patton later discovered they had a firm in Augusta.

“I reached out to one of the partners here, and he was familiar with the program in Atlanta. I asked if they would be willing to do something similar, and he said absolutely. He connected me with Mark Williamson, who started handling all of our custody and adoption cases,” Patton said.

For almost the next 10 years, Williamson worked closely with HGP. When his time ended, he connected HGP with Stacy Fowler, who handled their cases from 2013-20.

Fowler was an adjunct professor in the Katherine Reese Pamplin College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences from 2005-10 where she taught classes in the Political Science, Criminal Justice and Sociology departments, as well as women’s studies and the paralegal program.

She said Williamson told her about his work with the program and introduced her to Patton. She started filing custody and adoption cases on behalf of the families in the program.

“I love that the program helps local families,” Fowler said. “It ensures children are safe and secure in a loving environment with their grandparents when the parent is unable to provide care.”

Fowler enjoyed her seven years with HGP, and, when she needed to step back, she did so with a sincere appreciation for the work Patton put into the program and was overwhelmed by the love shown to her by those in the program.

“Just how appreciative the families are to have legal counsel and support from the program so that they can have guidance in keeping the children together with family,” she said. “The grandparents in the program are wonderful care providers, and the program helps them navigate the process of taking on a guardian/custodial parental role. The Healthy Grandparents Program is great in providing support to both the grandparents and the children.”

Jacki Thomas has been assisting HGP since 2020. She is an attorney at Turner Padget Graham & Laney, P.A., and first heard of the program through Fowler in 2019. Thomas said, after hearing of her experience, she knew it was something she wanted to be a part of.

“I initially started working with the program by representing some of the grandchildren, and that eventually shifted into representing the grandparents,” Thomas said. “When I approached Turner Padget about working with the program and taking on a smaller private caseload, they gave me their full support, and I am so grateful that they were able to see and appreciate the value of the program and all that it does for our community.” 

Thomas said that how well HGP is run, Patton’s “servant’s heart and incredible dedication” to everyone in the program and its overall mission, are some of the driving forces behind her involvement.

“The program provides resources to a very underserved group of individuals. The grandparents have often sacrificed immensely for the benefit of their families and have more times than not experienced a great deal of loss,” Thomas said. “To work with a well-run organization that provides assistance to a group that is often forgotten seemed like a no-brainer.”

Patton said the custodial legal assistance provided is imperative to providing grandchildren with stability and permanency in their lives.

“Without it, many of these children would never have stability. Once the grandparents obtain legal custody through the courts, they can enroll their grandchildren in school, access medical care and coverage, and provide a permanent, loving home for their grandchildren,” Patton said. “Accessing the legal system can be intimidating, costly, and for many grandparents unattainable. There is no doubt in my mind that with the help of Mark, Stacy and Jacki, many of these grandchildren’s lives have been saved, kept them from a lifetime of abuse/neglect, and prevented many from being placed in the foster care system.”

Thanks to the attorneys, the program has helped 334 grandparents gain full custody of their grandchildren and adopt 145 more.