Food Commodity Distribution
Each month the West Georgia Star Resident Services Program host a food bank that serves the LaGrange Housing Authority community as well as the outside community. The food bank is provided commodities through Feeding the Valley out of Columbus, Georgia. Food Bank applications can be completed on the day of the food bank for the following month, and can be completed in the offices of the housing authority up until the Wednesday before the food bank. Clients are served on a first come first serve basis, and those who have completed applications before the deadline are served first. You may complete an application on the day of the food bank for services that day, but if you choose this route, you will not be served until all previously turned in applications have been completed. The food bank is set up at the Benjamin Harvey Hill Homes from 9:00am – 11:00am and at Lucy Morgan Homes from 1:00pm-4:00pm. The WGS Resident Services Program also allows residents to volunteer at the food bank in order to gain community service hours.
Financial Management
Financial Management is an area of life that we all struggle with. The WGS Resident Services program will be working the World Financial Group organization to provide financial management workshops to residents. These workshops will focus on understanding budgets, strategies to successful budgets, and how to open and manage bank accounts. For more information on the Financial Management workshops, please contact the WGS Resident Services Program.
GED Tutoring
The WGS Resident Services program is working with West Georgia Technical College to get residents enrolled in the GED adult education program. West Georgia Star offers transportation services to registration sessions and morning and afternoon classes for residents. The WGS staff will also assist with any tutoring that residents enrolled in the classes may need. If you are interested in registering for GED classes, please contact the WGS Residents Services Program.
Health and Nutrition
The goal of the WGS Resident Services Program is to make sure that our residents are not only self-sufficient, but are also healthy. The program offers health and nutritional workshops to ensure that residents are gaining the proper knowledge on how to be healthy. The workshops will discuss healthy eating habits, provide facts on common diseases and illnesses that affect our population, and strategies to monitor your health. The program will also incorporate fitness classes into the workshops. Attending workshops can also count toward your monthly community service hours. The schedule for boot camps is as follows:
Mondays 10am - 11am Lucy Morgan Homes; 6pm - 7pm Ben Hill Homes
Tuesdays 10am - 11am Ben Hill Homes; 6pm until 7pm Lucy Morgan Homes
Thursdays 10am - 11am Lucy Morgan Homes; 6pm until 7pm Ben Hill Homes
Life Skills Training
Life skills are abilities for adaptive and positive behavior that enable us to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life, in other words psychosocial competency. They are a set of human skills acquired via teaching or direct experience that are used to handle problems and questions commonly encountered in daily human life. The housing authority is committed to providing a holistic approach to changing the lives of our residents. We have compiled a 12 week series of classes that will enhance, and develop your life skills. They encompass the biological, physical and mental aspects of your life; so that you become full and whole. Some of the classes associated with the Life Skill Training are as follows: effective communication, financial management, Preventive health care and spiritual well-being.
Community Garden
The community garden created by WSG in March 2015 has been well received by the LaGrange Housing Authority community. The garden not only provides access to fresh food, but has become a bonding place for interaction amongst the residents as well as an educational experience for the youth. The community garden has become a healthy and inexpensive activity for the youth that bring them closer to nature and allow them to interact with each other in a socially meaningful and physically productive way. The Garden Club will even begin offering workshops on gardening tips such as seeding, watering, garden maintenance, etc (please see the monthly newsletter for upcoming dates). The Garden Club meets every Monday at 5:30pm at the Ben Hill Pavilion. For more information on the garden or how to join the garden club please contact Faye Gilliam at (706) 882-6416 ext 48.
