Two decades after relocating to Augusta with her four kids, Monique Braswell still advocates for children, taking the school board to task Dec. 12 for sending unprepared substitutes into special-needs classrooms.
“Sometimes, I feel in my heart that they don’t know what’s going on,” said Braswell, who has raised the four, given up by their birth mom in New York, and a few more.
“I also go down there and thank them when things are going right,” Braswell said.
The Brooklyn, N.Y., native looked around the south for a new place to call home. A hurricane eliminated Florida, but Augusta would pose its own challenges, when her youngest started at Wheeless Road Elementary.
“There was a fight at the school, and I was told the bus would be back at my house, and it was 4 o’clock and my kids still had not gotten back,” she said.
A principal tried to tell her about “when you live in the hood,” but Braswell said she wasn’t hearing it.
“You have to remember what comes out of the ‘hood – doctors, lawyers, teachers,” she said.
Braswell was a helicopter parent, following her three boys and girl through the system and later adopting a great-nephew and a critically ill great-niece, who died in infancy last year.
As a mother in what was Murphey charter school PTA, Braswell made advocacy and participation her main goals. She was elected Richmond County Council of PTAs president in 2011.
That year, membership swelled to 7,802, its highest since 2003. Wilkinson Gardens Elementary had 550 members, and Murphey grew to 678.
At Christmas, Braswell said families should be together, not off with their friends.
“My family comes over Christmas Eve, that’s when we exchange our gifts, and then they wake up in the morning with their families,” she said.
Today, Braswell is running for elected office for the very first time.
She declared to run for school board in 2014, but withdrew from the race after a breast cancer diagnosis.
Over the years, inspired by her grandmother, Braswell gave back, hosting bookbag drives, mass community meals and something called the Child Service Awards.
“A lot of adults get recognized, but for me there was nothing that I did that did not involve my kids,” she said. “I wanted to do something to honor the kids.”
In its first year, the program honored 54 children, some as young as five, for giving. Sponsors lined up.
Braswell served for 14 years on the board of the CSRA Economic Opportunity Authority – where she’d been a client – and continues to organize the “Feast before the Feast,” a Thanksgiving banquet, at multiple locations.
She’s been honored as a “Woman to Watch,” one of the “Faces of Augusta” and Augusta Parks and Recreation recently recognized Braswell for her contributions to the community.
The beauty of having multiple children is they can continue her legacy, Braswell said.
“If I drop dead tomorrow, my kids can run any program that I ever ran,” she said.
Susan McCord is a staff writer with The Augusta Press. Reach her at susan@theaugustapress.com
