When she took the helm of the Palmetto community day care center, Alice Little needed no introduction.
She had grown up in Tupelo. Her father, the Rev. T.C. Little, had pastored Lane Chapel C.M.E. Church for years. Little had carved herself a niche as an adult through her service and leadership on various committees.
A teacher of elementary and high school students in various places across the South, Little returned to Tupelo, where she worked 29 years as an Extension Service agent in the segregated system of the time. People in the rural areas knew her for her gardening, animal husbandry and homemaking expertise. They also knew her ability to reach young people through various 4-H clubs.
Yet, once she connected with Daily Journal owner/publisher George McLean – at the end of her Extension Service career – Little dug deeper into what people would remember her for. In the beginning, McLean urged her to help with the Rural Community Development Council of the 1950s, designed to lift subsistence farmers’ quality of life through communication with councils from other areas, nearby cities and towns, and experts from Mississippi State and the Tennessee Valley Authority. The RCDC program proved successful and became a nationwide model. The Community Development Foundation, organized in 1948, took the program to help it grow.
Not contented to rest on a single success, McLean and others worked to establish LIFT, Inc. that would become another CDF agency. Its president for 10 years, McLean drafted Little to help reach out and work with poor people across Lee County.
This arm to the poor saw McLean hire Little for a special project. She would develop a program for the most impoverished community in Lee County, situated in Palmetto. Little’s initial survey of the site painted a dreary picture of underemployed men and women, unwed pregnant teenagers, single-parent families with children needing education and day care.
Little rolled up her sleeves. She attempted LIFT’s Headstart program. Soon, Little realized the children needed, the community required much more. The local C.M.E. church in Palmetto provided the classroom space. LIFT furnished meals. The little school received the donation of a potato patch. They formed the “Parents for Children Club,” so moms and dads could learn how to teach their children; how to care for them.
After nearly a decade, the Parents for Children Club built an annex with a kitchen, playground, and other space for young children. Again, in 1976, the center expanded.
Through those years, Little and her staff taught children, but also saw to the whole of the family in terms of health, nutrition, and the home atmosphere. In her words, the center was designed to “provide the child training in an environment of love and affection.”
Little died in 1983. She left a portion of her estate for CREATE to manage to benefit the Palmetto Day Care Center.
April 02, 2021 at 03:41PM
https://www.djournal.com/opinion/columnists/leesha-faulkner-alice-little-became-a-poor-community-s-champion/article_552009b0-dc62-5566-b1dd-3d309bf5ff8a.html
LEESHA FAULKNER: Alice Little became a poor community's champion - Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal
https://news.google.com/search?q=little&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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