“I grew up in Crossett, Ark. It’s nine miles north of the Louisiana line and is one of the largest pine forests in the world. It’s only six feet above sea level. I was a swamp girl and spent a lot of time in the woods, but I also was a cheerleader and president of the student government.

I had two younger brothers, and my parents took in two foster children and an exchange student from Japan. My parents wanted to give back, but it made my brothers and me more humble. We lived with children who were starved, burned with cigarettes, or sexually abused. It gave me a different perspective on the world.

Our foster kids were like siblings to us. Robin was so malnourished. His mother died, and he was shuffled among relatives and older siblings. He had cigarette burns from the bottom of his feet to the top of his head. He started using our last name and asked my parents to adopt him. The father was fine with it until he found out he would lose the mother’s social security benefits. Robin went back to the dad and soon ended up at the Baptist Children’s home. We tried to get him back, but the system wouldn’t put him with us again.

The Department of Youth Services asked us in the fall of 1982 to take in Patricia. She was 6, and I was 16. When my mother bathed her she screamed like a scalded cat because she had never had a bath or seen an indoor bathroom. I put her hair in sponge rollers that night trying to comfort her. We shared a room, and I had to roll her hair every night. She wore a dress and little heels every single day. She was as cute as a button.

That is when I learned that something magical happens at the end of every school year. Broken families are suddenly healed, and children are sent home, even if the parents haven’t gone to counseling or done anything to change. Patricia’s stepfather grew marijuana and participated in chicken and dog fights. He sold Patricia and her siblings to other men.

After Patricia left, I broke the rules and drove by their house. I saw her in the yard and stopped to talk to her. Her stepfather started screaming at us. Patricia’s mother came out and had a black eye. I got out of there. Patricia’s mother later called my mom for help. Mom got her into the one shelter in Arkansas for abused women. The stepfather offered to sell Patricia to my family. One of the biggest regrets of my life is that my parents wouldn’t buy her. My dad said you don’t buy and sell humans.

I have no idea what happened to Robin or Patricia, but they were two lives that could have possibly been changed forever if the system had worked. Because of them, I’ve been advocating for children all of my life. I ran the daycare at the Roger Williams housing project and the Mobile Infirmary daycare for their employees. We had the richest and poorest kids in the county and everywhere in between, and often the problems were the same.

The HighScope early childhood education study has been recording the impact of good quality childcare for 50 years. They followed the same group of kids for more than 50 years and the impact was not what they expected. It didn’t necessarily affect that first generation, but their children and grandchildren did better. There was less incarceration and less drug and alcohol abuse. We need to be paying attention to this.

I went to Saint Mary’s Home and worked with abused kids. Everybody expects the nonprofit world to create miracles, but people aren’t timber that you keep tweaking and breeding. If we don’t look closely at these kids, we don’t see how physical and verbal abuse changes the brain.

My job as the Executive Director of the United Way of Southwest Alabama is to bring community resources together to address issues, not save somebody. If anybody’s being saved, it’s me. I know down to every fiber in my bones this is what I am supposed to do. I want to help everyone be the best person they can be. If we don’t take mental health and public education seriously in this country, we are going to continue to fail.

Dealing with my cancer, I’m trying not to feel like a failure.

I had a sore in my mouth that wouldn’t go away. It was head and neck cancer, and it grew so rapidly. I never realized I had a beautiful smile until 1/4th of my mouth was cut off. If I smile, I look like a monster. They ripped off a chunk of my arm to put in my cheek and a chunk of my leg to put in my arm. My thyroid was burned.
My surgery was on March 6, 2020, at UAB. The whole world changed while I was in the hospital. And when I got out, I felt like the guy from the walking dead. While In the hospital, we hadn’t seen the news and had no clue that COVID had arrived in Alabama. They kicked me out of the hospital a week early and wouldn’t tell me why. But it got me up and going.

This is the first time I have spoken publicly about cancer. It took a while to allow pictures of me to be taken. Having cancer has been humbling. Before cancer, I was a 110-pound runner and tennis player. Now I am disfigured and have gained 50 pounds. It’s hard to exercise. My partner, Jack, and I get up and walk at 4 a.m. I am exhausted, but I am here and too mean to die.

It all changed so fast. One day I was fine, and the next day cancer appears. My husband, Micheal, died from cancer ten years ago this November. I have pity parties every once in a while. I give myself about a minute and say, okay, we’re done with the pity party. I am only limited by what I let this limit me to.

My doctor told me I’m one of two patients of his that has gone back to work. He asks me if I want to go on disability, but I’m not disabled. One doctor told me I have three years to live, and I am a year and a half into this. I don’t want to constantly have that in my head. I think I can beat that and last five or seven years.

I have lived life on my own terms. I don’t have kids, but I am lucky to have the friends and coworkers I have. Working with the poor is not for everybody, but it gives you a different outlook on life. I have seen so many women survive hard things and learn from them. They are my example to keep fighting on.”

Jill