For anyone who has suffered a serious illness, whether personally or with a child; anyone facing the challenges of autoimmune disease; and any medical professionals who have worked to help them, Allison Greene has walked in these shoes.
I met Allison in 2013 while working on a story for the South Carolina Hospital Association advocating for the South Carolina’s Legislature to consider expanding Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Her son’s story became a central focus of the story, one of heart, soul, trials and tribulations.
Most of what hear about America these days outlines our frustrations – the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots, middle class jobs fading away, hate-filled politics that prefers gridlock to compromise. What we know about America mostly comes from journalists who travel in herds, trailing politicians or camped out at big stories, pouncing on problems to repeat over and over. They offer up celebrity experts for solutions, the people who spend their busy days spouting opinions to cameras, while others in the shadows quietly make America work.
Becky Callaham is the executive director of Safe Harbor, a domestic violence organization that serves the upstate of South Carolina. Safe Harbor’s mission is to provide a continuum of services for victims of domestic violence and their children, as well as to eliminate the cultural acceptance of domestic violence through prevention, education and a coordinated community response.