Bradley and Bonita Vinson knew they couldn’t be the only ones.
Through a family tragedy, the long-time Lantana couple has been raising two of their four grandsons for the past eight years. The boys came to live with them full-time when they were just 6 and 2 years old, respectively. And while they would do anything for those boys — and still do — as guardians for the first time in a long time, it’s hard not to stick out like a sore thumb everywhere they go.
“You go to a school event, and guess who’s the oldest in the room every time?” Bonita said. “You can end up feeling pretty lonely.”
The good news is that Bradley and Bonita are in good health, financially stable, and pretty darn resourceful. So, providing a stable and loving home for their grandkids isn’t too challenging on most days. But it’s not easy for other grandparents thrust into a similar situation. Some are 50 and 60 years older than the generation they’re caring for. Others are single, living in poverty, and juggling their grandkids’ needs with their own. They feel embarrassed, tired, and lonely. They also have a litany of questions, and the harsh reality is that financial and educational resources and support in those areas can be challenging to come by if you don’t know where to look.
That’s where Bradley and Bonita want to help. For the last few years, they’ve been actively seeking out other grandparents in their shoes to create some semblance of an informal local support community. Bonita was doing more online research in April when she stumbled upon a San Antonio-based 501c(3) non-profit called Texas Grandparents Raising Grandchildren (TXGRG).
Founded by Mercedes Bristol, TXGRG has been empowering grandparents raising their grandchildren for nearly a decade. But not many people knew about it. And until recently, their efforts were limited to the San Antonio area. Before Bradley and Bonita could blink, they had scheduled an in-person meeting with Bristol and put the wheels in motion to start a formal North Texas Chapter. This new chapter aims to extend the parent organization’s impactful services and support to grand-families in the North Texas region — a crucial step considering the significant number of children in Texas living in kinship care outside of foster care.
“Once we found that organization, it was like rocket fuel for us,” Bradley said. “We want to make kinship care a recognized status like foster care because, in all honesty, grandparents are doing all the same things a foster parent does but without the same access to critical resources, advocacy, awareness, and education. It’s hard for grandparents raising their grandchildren, and we want to help.”
He added, “As we get more backing, the hurdles we face will be lowered for the next family.”
According to the TXGRG website, 892,721 Texas children live in a home where a relative is the head of the household. And of those heads of household, nearly 300,000 are grandparents. But the striking statistics don’t stop there. For every child in foster care, there are 24 children outside of foster care under kinship, a term used when a child is cared for by a non-parent family member such as a grandparent, great-grandparent, aunt, uncle, older sibling, or other blood relative.
In many of those situations, it may just be that they need a few questions answered — How do we become legal guardians? How do we enroll these children in school? How do I apply for insurance for our grandkids? How can I connect with other grandparents to form a tight-knit community to lean on? But for every one of those situations, the Vinsons say there are horror stories. When it comes to grandparent caregivers in Texas, 32.6% are over the age of 60. A staggering 23.2% are in poverty, and 28.8% have a disability. Just more than a quarter of that total grandparent population are unmarried or widowed.
“We held our first support group meeting [in November]. There were only five people there; honestly, we weren’t sure if anyone would show up. But one husband-wife team with very modest means became GRGs to two elementary school-age kids,” Bonita said. “They’d been caring for those children with no support from anyone for two years, and it broke our hearts. Not everyone is in the same position. We want other GRGs to know they’re not alone, and that we can help each other.”
Bradley agreed and added, “They could be suddenly faced with a situation where the daughter or son drops the kids off for what should have been a weekend but never come back. Other reasons could be CPS-related. Some of these GRGs are great-grandparents with a disability, and now they’re suddenly caring for a child. Our goal is to go through the woods with a sickle and make a trail for them.”
As far as Bradley and Bonita are concerned, the sky is the limit for their new North Texas chapter. In fact, they and co-volunteer, Anne Scaggs, have already created a smaller Denton County group and have plans to add more as the need arises in other North Texas counties.
“Who knows, maybe it will get to where there’s a group for Flower Mound, and another in Lewisville,” Bonita said. “All of this is volunteer work. We found ourselves in this position and knew there had to be others. We want to know who they are and offer help and make friendships along the way.”
For more information on the great work being done at Texas Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, including how to get involved with the North Texas chapter or create one in your community, visit txgrg.com.
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