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Grace said. “They just became my babies when she placed them in my hands.” Complications arose as the boys got old enough to enroll in the Head Start early childhood program, Grace said. “Once the paperwork started coming in, we knew we needed correct legal documents to get them where they needed to be in school,” she said. Finances also became an issue “We could not get any help from the state,” Grace said. “We’re both on Social Security. When you’re liv ing on a fixed income sometimes it gets a little short. That was when Grace Fair said she reached out, “and my friends and family stepped up to the plate” with fundraisers, gifts of food and clothing, cash donations, and prayers. But the Fairs also strug gled with the legal system, frustrated by a complicated process and literacy limita tions. In the spring of 2018, help arrived in the form of the Scribing Pilot Program at the Ninth Judicial District Court and court clerk Vickie Wilkerson. “IT walked in one day and Vickie told me she was glad to see me and that now she could help me fill out the paperwork because of this pilot program,” Grace said. Wilkerson said the Scribing Pilot Program was established that year to offer free help to anyone needing a hand navigating the legal system because of “language barriers, mental challenges, or literacy challenges.” “IT can sit with them and I can write for them,” she explained. “In the past that was a big no-no.” Wilkerson estimates that 95 percent of domestic cases (those involving divorce, child custody, etc.) are currently filed “pro se” (without the assis tance of an attorney) and the Scribing Pilot Program is there to fill that void. Grace Fair said she was the first person in Roosevelt County to get to take advantage of the new service, which helped her become kinship guardian to the two older boys, but initially left her without legal documents on the youngest. “Putting him in school was very difficult,” she said. “I decided at that moment I had to get them adopted.” This final step — a giant one — has taken the past seven months. The boys since day one have been surrounded by two loving communities, Grace said: Portales, where the Fairs have a loving support system of friends and extended family, and Hallsville, Missouri, where the brothers spend two months each summer with other family members “doing all the things that boys do at this age ... fish ing, camping, swimming.” Grace said her faith in God has fueled her from the beginning. “God is at the very top in our family,” she said. “He knows what we need before we ask.” She also had a message for the judge who made a dream come true last week. “Judge Donna Mowrer,” Grace Fair said, “thank you for making this family complete. We promise to do the very best we can by these boys.” Betty Williamson thinks raising children is the most important group project of all. Reach her at: pepnm@hotmail.com
Newspaper Details
The Eastern New Mexico News
Clovis, New Mexico, US
Wed, Jul 22, 2020
Page 11
Full Page
Clipped by
Tracy F.
