Look at the picture below. That to me is a face of someone discouraged and hurt. Her name is Debra Harrell and because of her situation I had trouble sleeping. Some will look at her picture and only see color and already make assumptions. But please just hear me out before you judge.
On June 30th, 2014 Debra Hall had to go to work as a shift manager at McDonald's. It's summer time so her daughter Regina is out of school. Debra is a single mom and had no friends that could watch Regina while she went to work so Debra made a difficult decision. Instead of calling in she left her daughter at Summerfield Park in North Augusta, South Carolina alone. This is not any ordinary park. There are other children left in the park while their parents go to work or wherever else they may spend their time. During the day at Summerfield Park kids can get wet on the splash pad, play on the playground, or basketball courts. Volunteers also come by the park and hold the feed-a-child program. This program provides the children at the park free breakfast and lunch. Looking in Debra's eyes I see something deep that I don't see in everyone's eyes so I can only imagine how tough it must have been for her to kiss Regina's forehead and tell her she had to go to work. I'm not condoning what Debra did because there are too many child predator's out there to leave children alone anywhere. But if she was going to leave her anywhere this park would be the best spot. Someone spotted Regina alone at the park and called the police. Debra was arrested and spent 17 days in jail and lost temporary custody of Regina.
I do believe this story will have a happy ending and I can't say I believe that about all of these situations. You see Debra is what we root for in our society. When she was younger she was arrested several times but her last brush with the law was a traffic violation in 2006. Since then it seems as though she's tried to turn her life around. The last thing we need to do is prosecute her in this situation and set her and Regina back years. Regina is on the honor roll at her school and Debra was welcomed back to her job as a shift manager at McDonalds. On top of that people have donated over 40k dollars to a trust fund for Regina's education. I don't know Debra and I could be completely wrong but I have to believe in a woman who chooses to work at McDonald's instead of relying on others to take care of her. My only point in this is can't we as a country provide some kind of child care for parents in these situations? We send money all over the world but we sometimes ignore our own in order to do that. Look in Debra's eyes and tell me you don't see hurt and shame. Please just give people a chance in life before you judge them. Kids like Regina are counting on us to help ensure she becomes the next generation of successful individuals.
I'm not a judge so all I'm going to do is remember how lucky I am and think all positive thoughts for Debra and Regina. I'll hope that their future is filled with smiles and love and that Debra never again has the look on her face like she does in her mugshot.
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