Jammie Tunis lives off her disability payment, which is just over $850 a month.
She also raises her four granddaughters with limited financial support.
The Center Moreland resident has full custody of all four girls — all of whom have medical issues — and has been at least partially raising them since they were born.
Her mother, who passed earlier this year, used to help with the girls and caretaker duties for her brother with a disability due to a traumatic brain injury. Since then, she's been the sole guardian of the four girls and primary caretaker to her brother.
Her daughter, in and out of jail, proved unable to raise the girls herself, said Tunis.
Tunis struggles financially every month, looking for creative ways to rake in more income.
Her regular expenses include gas money for daily drives to and from school and to various doctor appointments, many of which are in Danville, as well as food and clothes.
“I can't get every benefit out there to me in Wyoming County, although there isn't a lot in Wyoming County, but what there is I can't get to on account of I'm always [at an] appointment,” Tunis said.
At 52, many of the resources available for grandparents raising grandchildren are not available to Tunis. The age requirement for many programs, including through the Area Agency on Aging, is 55.
Wyoming County Grandparents Raising Grandchildren aims to fill the gaps and help people like Tunis with their advocacy organization.
Run by Linda Coolbaugh, a grandmother and substitute teacher at Tunkhannock School District, and Nancy Aiello, a grandmother raising her own twin grandchildren, the organization gathers monthly to allow grandparents space to talk about their situations and frequently connects grandparents with local events like food or coat drives.
Aiello hopes to keep breaking the stigma within her generation about asking for help.
“A lot of grandparents are very proud, and they won't ask for help because they feel like there's something wrong with them, that they're not supporting [their grandchildren] enough, and we're trying to convince them that it's not that way,” she said.
“It's okay to sign up for a program.”
'All over Pennsylvania'
Aiello said she became her grandsons’ guardian because of her daughter’s mental health struggles.
“If you had someone knock on your door and say, ‘Well, if you don't take them, they're going to have to go on a foster program,’ I don't know anyone who would turn those children away, and that's what's happening in not just this county, all over Pennsylvania,” she said.
According to AARP, nearly 80,000 grandparents are raising their grandchildren in the state.
State Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski, an advocate for Pennsylvania’s community of grandparents raising grandchildren, identified the top three causes for grandparents to raise their grandchildren as drug abuse, incarceration and death.
The opioid epidemic is a major reason why so many grandparents raise their grandchildren, he said.
“Drugs or death or incarceration, those were the three things,” Pashinski said. “The drugs got them incarcerated, or they died from them.”
Tunkhannock grandmother Tammy Crawford, 59, became her three grandchildren's guardian due to drug addiction.
“My daughter didn't want her first two children, so her dad and I took them,” she said. “My grandson was born severely addicted to heroin. That's why we have him.”
Like Aiello, she never thought twice about raising them.
“I kept them all together so they can be sisters and brothers,” Crawford said. “So I wouldn't have it any other way. It's just like taking care of my own kids.”
Financial strain and legal battles
Wyoming County Grandparents Raising Grandchildren recently partnered with The Luzerne Foundation to raise money to help grandparents with financial struggles. Limited financial resources sometimes make it difficult for grandparents to take children to free events being offered.
“We are [working] with the Luzerne Foundation now, and we're trying to build up some funding so that if we have a grandparent that doesn't have the gas to be able to come, we can give them gas money,” Aiello said.
Crawford still works as a private caregiver, but having only one income makes it difficult for her to financially support herself and all three grandchildren.
“Just figure out a way,” she said. “Rob Peter to pay Paul. It's been like that my whole life.”
While the grandparents are grateful to have their grandchildren, many are silently struggling with the financial burden of raising them.
“They don’t realize the blessing it is to have those grandchildren, but it is a financial burden,” Aiello said.
Unlike foster parents, grandparents raising their grandchildren do not get any extra government assistance for raising children that are not theirs. The same is true for other family members that step in to raise their relatives.
“The government doesn't support us,” Tunis said.
Crawford would like to see more government assistance for grandparents like herself.
“They should pass a law where they give a stipend, not to get rich, but to help support the children,” she said.
Pashinski advocates for the community in Harrisburg and wants more people to see the value in financially assisting grandparents for raising their grandchildren.
“Why would we punish them, because they're the grandparents, and yet a foster family could [raise] those children and get subsidized,” he said.
Pashinski already helped pass two bills intended to help.
“The first bill gave the grandparents what's called loco parentis, whereby they had parental power for a year, so that they could then have temporary guardianship, legally, take care of the children,” he said. “The other bill was to develop a contact for grandparents all over the state, which set up an email, a contact phone number for grandparents to make a phone call to get advice, because before that, they had nothing.”
For many grandparents, legally adopting their grandchildren is financially out of reach. However, for many raising their grandchildren, it is a must to get legal custody.
“You’re afraid that they are going to come and take the children,” Aiello said.
Without custody, the grandparents have little to no power over their grandchildren. This could lead to parents using their children as bargaining chips, or making decisions for children they are barely responsible for raising.
“When the boys were younger, one of them needed to have their tonsils out,” Aiello said. “They just kept getting sick. We scheduled the appointment, and then the father said, ‘I don't see any sense in it.’ He called the surgeon and said, ‘I will sue you if you do this.’ So no one would take it out. He still gets sick a lot because he should have had his tonsils out. You have no control.”
Even with custody, there are roadblocks to getting the children care.
“I have issues when I go to the doctors and I have to provide them with the paperwork,” Crawford said. “You have to make sure you have these custody papers, otherwise you can't get these kids treated at [the] doctors.”
The long and often emotional legal process to get custody is expensive. In Wyoming County, there are no resources for grandparents going through that process to get assistance with covering the legal fees.
“I know myself, we must have spent at least $20,000 just through the court system, and that was hard,” Aiello said.
Grandparents have limited rights even if they have full custody. Every year, Aiello races to file her taxes so she can get the child tax credit instead of her daughter. Despite Aiello being the one to raise her twin grandsons, her daughter can still claim them for tax purposes.
“Whoever files the taxes first gets it,” she said.
Pashinski is working on another bill to provide funding for grandparents across the state. If the bill passes, $1.5 million would be given to nonprofits that could then disperse them to grandparents for legal fees as well as other expenses.
“The $1.5 million would now be available to every grandparent in the state of Pennsylvania,” he said. “The process would be they'd have to go to a nonprofit to make their case, then the nonprofit would then reach out to the state and apply for the money to help pay for the legal fees. It could [also] be travel, could be food, it could be whatever the children need.”
Disparate resources
Luzerne County’s Area Agency on Aging offers support to grandparents of both Luzerne and Wyoming counties through the Caregiver Support Program (CSP). However, Luzerne County’s Agency does not offer grandparents assistance with legal fees.
Pashinski helps run the Advocacy Fund For Grandparents Raising Grandchildren, which serves grandparents in Luzerne County. Wyoming County grandparents are not eligible for help from the advocacy fund, which is why Pashinski is prioritizing getting his latest bill supporting the community passed. He wants grandparents across the state to feel supported, not just those in specific counties.
The fund’s mission is to, “provide initial financial aid to qualified grandparents in Luzerne County by helping them navigate the legal process as they care for their grandchildren.”
Lackawanna County grants grandparents who do not have the means to pay a special status when filing for custody of a grandchild.
“Grandparents who are filing for custody of a grandchild and do not have the means to pay can file for IFP status (filing without paying a filing fee),” said Lackawanna County’s Area Agency on Agency’s director Sara McDonald in a statement to WVIA. “In forma pauperis (IFP) is Latin for ‘in the form of a pauper.’ IFP status is generally granted to those who the court determines do not have the resources to pay the filing fee.”
Some grandparents that are a part of Lackawanna County’s CSP offered through the Area Agency on Aging may be eligible for up to a $600 reimbursement every month for expenses like travel or over the counter medications not covered by insurance. While there is not a formal process to assist grandparents with legal fees, the Agency does step in to help where it can.
“If there was a need or request, we would collaborate with our Office of Youth and Family Services, Pro Bono, and community partners to offer education and person centered counseling to see if we had a resource to address the need,” McDonald said.
Wyoming County District Attorney Joseph Peters thinks rural counties are overlooked when it comes to effects of the opioid crisis, like grandparents raising their grandchildren.
“People think of big city problems and that they don't exist in a small, rural county,” Peters said. “They do, which makes the challenge even greater, because there aren't the commensurate resources to be able to battle them.”
Coolbaugh keeps advocating for Wyoming County grandparents because she knows it’s possible to get the help they need based on progress in surrounding counties.
“Wyoming County is behind,” she said. “They try. There are programs out there, like the food, the clothing. In the bigger cities, like Luzerne County, Lackawanna County, there is some funding and the legal fees that are being paid for, but they're not here in Wyoming County. We haven't got that far yet.”
'I'm sorry, babe, but we can't'
Tunis knows that all too well. All four of her granddaughters have medical issues, which adds to the family's financial challenges.
Calista, 15, is prediabetic and has a condition that makes her joints and tendons weak, making her susceptible to twisting or spraining her ankles.
Loralei, 14, has both narcolepsy and cataplexy, making it difficult for her to sleep at night and stay awake during the day.
Amora, 9, has migraines with aura that lead to her frequently vomiting or passing out.
EmberLynn, 8, has narcolepsy and cataplexy like her older sister, on top of suffering from hypoglycemia, meaning her sugar levels need to be constantly monitored.
Because of their various health issues, Tunis drives the girls to school instead of letting them take the school bus. But it means she uses money on gas for daily pick-ups and drop-offs.
While she tries to stay in the know about food drives or helpful community events, it can be difficult to get to them.
She also feels guilty the girls don’t get to do what their peers do.
“We don't get to enjoy what other kids in school [do],” she said. “They'll say, ‘Grandma, this one's going to the movies. Can we go to movies?’ ‘I'm sorry, we can't go to the movies. I'm sorry, babe, but we can't.’ You go up there and then they're hungry or they're thirsty, or you're walking around and they see something they want, and it's too hard to tell them no, so it's easier not to go so they don't want or don't need.”
'They just want to feel the same'
Wyoming County Grandparents Raising Grandchildren co-founder Coolbaugh sees the pain that causes for children and families.
As a substitute teacher, she observes the difference between children raised by their parents and those raised by their grandparents. She said there is often an obvious financial difference between the two groups, and the children know they are different from their peers.
“‘We just got back from Disney,’” she said of what she overheard in the halls. “The other ones, they've never even been out of the state. They didn't even go to a park. They've never seen the ocean. And it just breaks your heart. I just want to do as much as I can while I still can.”
This motivates her to organize events for the children, like bowling trips or free movies at the Dietrich Theater in downtown Tunkhannock.
“They [children raised by grandparents] just want to feel the same, like all the rest of the kids, and some of them can't,” Coolbaugh said.
For the holidays, the organization works with Wyoming County’s Interfaith Friends to help grandparents give their grandchildren Christmas gifts. Adopt-a-Family allows community members to buy gifts for other families’ children if they are struggling financially.
While Tunis signed up, the gifts, like many other resources offered for grandparents raising their grandchildren, are limited.
“As a grandmother, I only get one gift per kid,” Tunis said. “Where parents that go in there and apply, they get five gifts per kid. So it's hard because I'm a grandparent, I only get one for each child, which is better than none. To see other parents that have their kids and they're eligible for five gifts a piece, it's kind of hard.”
Coolbaugh steps up in situations like these to make sure no grandparent is left behind.
“[Jammie’s] two youngest children still believe in Santa, Coolbaugh said. “My husband is going to dress up as Santa, and we're gonna go over on Christmas Eve, and she's already gonna have presents under the tree for the next morning, but my husband's gonna play Santa, go over that night and give them gifts.”
Love makes it worthwhile
Despite the hardships, the grandparents made it clear that all the struggles are worth giving their grandchildren safe, loving homes to grow up in.
Tunis has no regrets and doesn’t understand people’s praise for raising her grandchildren. For her, there was no other option for her girls.
“Everybody tells me I'm Superwoman, but really, I'm not,” Tunis said. “I just get up every day, happy, thankful to God that he put me here another day and I can do all this again.”
The good outweighs the bad in Tunis’ household, raising her four grandchildren.
“I wouldn't give it up for a million years,” she said. “I’d do this all over again. The benefit is the love, the joy, the just having them around.”
Crawford’s grandchildren helped her out of a dark place when her husband passed last year.
“If I didn't have these kids after my husband passed away, I don't know what would happen to me,” she said. “These kids have been my rock.”
Being a part of Wyoming County Grandparents Raising Grandchildren gives them a community to lean on for advice and support.
“It helps, because I'm not alone,” Tunis said. “There's other people there too that are raising grandchildren and are having some of the struggles that I have.”
Crawford gets ideas from other grandparents when attending the meetings. She leaves feeling the support of her community behind her.
“We compare notes,” she said. “Before I joined the group, it's like, ‘geez, am I the only grandparent?’ No, I'm not.”
