Georgia Smith has spent nearly 20 years with her guard up. And she’ll gladly leave it there, her eyes and ears peeled, to keep her neighborhood and community safe. As president of Mothers Against Crime in Eatonton, she remembers the moment she knew she couldn’t just “sit there and let these things happen anymore.”
In 1992, just seven months after her youngest daughter’s classmate had been shot and killed in the parking lot of Hardees, a young woman caught in the crossfire of a drug-related gunfight was shot in the back of the head. She was only 27 and had a baby in her arms. Smith worked as coordinator of organ and tissue donation at Putnam General at the time and cried with the girl’s mother as she struggled with the decision to take her off life support.
“I was so distraught. When they took her off, I knew right then that something had to be done.”
Smith is one of those people who, moments into your first meeting, radiate the confidence and fearlessness of a born leader. ("I'm a Leo like that," she says.) Her suggestion to picket a strip of "juke joints" in Putnam County exploded into a media frenzy, public involvement and eventually, the destruction of all but one of the buildings.
She and a group of other concerned mothers took their efforts to the schools. They provide scholarships for students, sponsor support programs for at-risk families, and organize parties, picnics and a mid-June all-community youth rally to keep locals focused on their youth and their future possibilities.
There’s Eatonton then and Eatonton now... and in between and in the future, you’ll find Georgia Smith and her fellow members in Mothers Against Crime working to make sure their community is safe.
Mothers Against Crime
403 Willie Bailey Street
Eatonton, Ga. 31024
706-485-5332
Monday, June 14, 2010
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