Moore Community House

Our summer blog series features some of our partner organizations working in the reproductive health, rights, and justice movement. This month we highlight Moore Community House. 

Moore Community House, a mission agency of United Methodist Women, served as the first organizational “home” for Faith in Women back in early 2015. Read on to learn more about how Moore Community House is transforming our state through building stronger communities for women and their families. 

Mission

Moore Community House (MCH) strives for flourishing Mississippi communities through their work to create economic security for women by providing affordable child care and job training. 

Brief History and Programs

Since 1924 MCH has been working to better the lives of families living on Mississippi’s coast. Located in East Biloxi, the organization has its roots in serving the children who worked–or whose parents worked–in the seafood factories at a time when there were no labor laws to protect workers or to prevent child labor abuses.

Today MCH has two major programs:

Early Head Start allows low-income parents to return to work while their children receive high-quality early child education from infancy through preschool. Their program covers a wide-variety of services including nutrition, counseling, school readiness, and employment. Early Head Start also works with pregnant women to make sure they stay healthy throughout their pregnancy, birth, and delivery. 

Women in Construction (WinC) provides career training for women in trade skills that will help them earn living wages.  Since 2008 more than 400 women have completed the pre-apprenticeship program, and just recently MCH received a $3.5 million federal grant to expand this initiative significantly over the next four years!

Supporting Faith in Women

Faith in Women owes its start to Carol Burnett, Director of Moore Community House. Seeing a need for progressive women-centered advocacy within the Mississippi faith community, Carol developed the idea to build a grassroots network of faith leaders and people of faith working in support of Mississippi women and their reproductive health. The idea quickly took root under the leadership of Ashley Peterson, becoming the Faith in Women network that we know today and operating under its own 501(c)3. Carol now serves as our Board President, guiding the vision of Faith in Women alongside WinC Program Director Julie Kuklinski and WinC Instructor Simone Agee.

Opportunities to Connect

There are a number of ways you can get involved with the work of the Moore Community House. Visit their website to make a donation, read up on recent news, or follow them on Facebook. To learn more about the Women in Construction program, you can follow their blog.