Meet Janice Hadaway of Destiny Independence USA in Rome

Today we’d like to introduce you to Janice Hadaway.

Janice, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
While working as “Big Buddies’ in a church Day Camp for economically challenged children in 2008, my husband and I met three adorable, very bright little boys (brothers) who displayed extremely challenging behavior. During the following school year, the middle brother (who was in first grade at the time) made the highest score on the standardized test of all the first through third grade boys in his school, which confirmed what we already knew in our hearts; we could not let these precious minds slip through the cracks of poverty.

In 2009 we became personal mentors to the boys, and nine years later we are still mentoring them, and happy to report that at ages 14, 16, and 17, none of the three have been involved in any crime, drugs, gangs, or early parenting. All three are making good grades in school and are on track to graduate from high school on time and go onto college or trade school. What a testament to the power of mentoring!

In early 2016, I faced a critical decision because of the need for a change in employment. By that time we were no longer mentoring just three boys, but were in fact mentoring in one way or another about thirty kids as a result of the boys introducing us over the years to other kids in their neighborhood. We realized that it didn’t take rocket scientists to do what we had done with and for the three boys and began wondering what would happen if we could find fifty to a hundred other adults in our community who would do what we have done with them; adults who would commit themselves to the long-term mentoring of one of more child(ren) who live in generational poverty.

Long story shortened, I made the difficult decision to quit my job and give up an income to start a 501c3 non-profit dedicated to reversing generational poverty. Put simply, DIUSA comes alongside the parents of children who are living in the most economically challenged area of Rome, GA and helps them raise their kids. The goal of Destiny Independence USA is to provide these kids with the resources that they currently do not have access to but need to have in order to become successful adults someday, such as tutoring, life skills information, transportation, and so much more that goes into raising kids.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Perhaps the biggest struggle that we face is a frequent lack of dependability. Much time and resources are spent planning and paying for tutoring and other fabulous experiences for our members, only to face a number of ‘no-shows’ or cancellations at the last minute. It has been a learning curve for us to understand that teaching them to plan ahead and honor a commitment is a long-term process.

Other struggles include the difficulty of persuading successful members of our community to become a mentor to a child, even though the commitment is only four to six hours per month, and the transportation challenges caused by not having a 15 passenger van or a facility of our own.

Please tell us about Destiny Independence USA.
The mission of Destiny Independence USA is to prepare hundreds of financially challenged children to become successful, independent adults. This is accomplished by tutoring and mentoring them beginning as early as age eight, all the way through high school, helping them get into college or trade school, and eventually into their first self-supporting adult employment. Fostering social and financial independence, emotional stability, and training to become moral, contributing members of society as they reach adulthood are critical aspects of the mentoring program. There are few other mentoring organizations in the country who have this type of long-term outcome based relationship with their mentees. We are proud of the many success stories we are watching unfold before our eyes.

As the years have gone by our observations of the community that we serve have allowed us to identify four major areas in which the children are often lacking resources. Academic and Career Guidance, Relationship Building (mentoring), Cultural Development, and Spiritual Nurture.

We believe that academic success is one of the primary cornerstones to eventual adulthood independence. We offer Academic Guidance because many children in this demographic fall behind grade level as early as elementary school, never again to catch up for the remainder of their schooling. We are solving this problem by partnering with Sylvan Learning Center of Rome (owner / director Angela Baron), which is providing FREE professional tutoring to our members. Even more exciting than that is the access Sylvan is giving our members to their Sylvan Sync Program, a customized tutoring program, delivered electronically with the oversight of a certified teacher. This amazing program brings students up to grade level in Reading and in Math over a period of months or years. Because of the great cost of this program to Sylvan, we are currently only able to deliver it to four students at a time, so we are currently trying to make sure all of our middle-schoolers are brought up to grade level before they enter high school. DIUSA provides FREE transportation to all tutoring.

We also spend many hours with each of our high school students during every year of their high school career, guiding them towards a Career that will be self-supporting. We have developed an extensive data base of careers that allows the students to search by salary, interests, etc.

DIUSA acts as the primary Mentoring conduit to ensure that each child continues on a productive trajectory towards independent adulthood. Our group mentoring includes Life Skills, Financial Literacy, and other ‘right of passage’ types of classes that prepare these young people to become successful adults someday. When available, adult volunteers, age 25 and up, are matched with a child or youth to provide a one-on-one, customized mentoring relationship.

We believe that children thrive best when their horizons are expanded, opening their minds to their own potential and dreams, so we are committed to providing our members with Cultural Development. Poverty often sequesters its children within the perimeter that defines their own neighborhood, rarely if ever giving them opportunities to see the outside world and its wonders. In addition to summer camp opportunities, Destiny Independence USA provides two field trips per year to mentees to events and places such as museums and art events.

DIUSA members are encouraged to develop a moral compass through any means possible, including regular church attendance. In addition to the short-term product of the individual child’s emotional health, we believe that the safety and happiness of a community is optimized when its citizens pursue Spiritual growth and moral laws.

Do you feel like our city is a good place for businesses like yours? If someone was just starting out, would you recommend them starting out here? If not, what can our city do to improve?
Destiny Independence USA can work anywhere in the U.S.  In fact, it is our aspiration to eventually have at least one chapter of DIUSA in multiple cities around the U.S.  The model has already been created, is working well and only needs to be duplicated. The primary consideration is to keep the services in a particular localized area of poverty simply because transportation must be provided.  Of course, if there are multiple vehicles and drivers who can pick up from diverse areas of the community, that might become a non-issue.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.diusa.org
• Phone: 706-766-5274
• Email: janiceh@diusa.org

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