MACON, Ga. — Throughout May, we will show you how and why mentors make a difference. Since 2019, we have seen gun violence take our children's lives by death or by them landing in jail in Central Georgia.
Studies show that when children have a mentor, they are more likely to stay out of trouble and succeed.
For our first story, we wanted to look at the life of a single parent and how kids having a mentor in that environment can make a difference.
Sometimes life can be like a house of blocks. You build it up, but sometimes it can crash even faster.
It's a story that Sunni Long, a single mom of five, knows all too well.
"It was just chaos all the time, and I felt so alone, and it was always just me and my kids, so I just turned to drugs; I just wanted to numb it," Sunni Long said.
Working around the clock to support her kids long felt the pressure of the world. Drugs took her to her lowest point when she lost her kids for 15 months.
"I showed up when they were in foster care, I never missed a visit, and I never missed a phone call; I wanted them to know they were still the most important thing to me; I just went down the wrong path," Long said.
Once Long got her kids back, the process of rebuilding started immediately.
With Long sharing her story, she found support through church, family, and many more people.
"One of my neighbors has become my best friend, and she helps with my kids and everything else," Long said.
A 2019 Pew research shows The United States has the world's highest rate of children living in single-parent households. Long admits a single-parent household is not what she wanted for her kids.
"People say you laid down and had them, exactly, and I am going to do everything in my power to make sure they are ok," Long said.
The father of her twin girls is slowly coming back into their lives, but the father of her other children is not around. That's just one of so many Long feels mentors make a difference.
"My daughter getting that important one-on-one time is huge because she gets a sense of community, she gets a sense of empowerment that hey, somebody else is taking an interest in my life," Long said.
Long is now looking for a mentor for three of her kids through Big Brothers, Big Sisters of the Heart of Georgia.
With the eventual goal of building a stable village of support to help her kids live life to their fullest potential.
Click HERE for the Mentor's Guide.
