Macon’s ‘Mother Teresa’ set to retire

June O’Neal’s hasn’t gotten much sleep over the past quarter century.

She often springs from her bed in pre-dawn hours after families have lost everything in house fires, teenagers or parents have been shot and killed or kids in abusive households feel endangered.

Tragedy can strike any time and she’s always on call.

She often works 18 or 20-hour days. Sometimes she’s gone when her husband of 47 years, Hank O’Neal, wakes up.

Her seemingly limitless energy, he says, is akin to “a squirrel on cocaine.”

“The phone is liable to ring at 11 o’clock at night,” he said. “If there’s a kid in a crisis and she has to leave and go see about it, she’ll leave and go see about it.”

After 25 years as executive director of the Mentors Project, June O’Neal is set to retire at the end of January. O’Neal has touched the lives of countless youth, and the impact of her work is immeasurable.

“She’d do it until she dropped, I think,” Hank O’Neal said. “She does the kinds of things nobody else wants to do a lot of the time.”

June O’Neal’s work with the Mentors Project extends far beyond the nonprofit’s mission of pairing vulnerable teenagers with adult mentors. She has helped families pay utility bills, property taxes and rent to help them avoid cut offs, property seizures and evictions.

She’s delivered food to the homes of Bibb County public school students during the summer months when the school district does not provide meals. She’s delivered beds, baby cribs, furniture, clothes, laundry detergent, soap and toothbrushes to families who need but can’t afford to buy them.

It was in a circular hospital bed at age 16 when she decided to become a social worker.

O’Neal was diagnosed with scoliosis and had worn a back brace for two and a half years before undergoing a trio of surgeries at an Atlanta hospital.

Her mother, Marcia Jordan, who died last year, stayed with her all but three of the 91 days she was hospitalized far from home in Hahira. That’s when she met a social worker for the first time.

“She was diabetic. She was recently diagnosed,” O’Neal recalled of the social worker the hospital assigned to her. “She would come and talk about her illness and there I was, lying in this body cast. It was horrible, …. I thought, ‘I know that I can do a better job than you’re doing because you are horrible and all you’re doing is talking about yourself.’ ”

O’Neal passed school that year. She graduated from Lowndes County High School at age 17.

“Raise Hell, stay alive with the class of ‘75,” O’Neal said. “We’re going to have our 50th reunion next year.”

O’Neal started working at the Mentors Project at the turn of the century. At about the same time, she adopted her daughter, Shamekia Towns O’Neal, who was 16 years old.

Shamekia Towns O’Neal had a troubled home life. Her mother was in an abusive relationship.

One day, “I end up meeting this short little lady,” 41-year-old semi truck driver Shamekia said of her mother. “She invited me over for Christmas and she’s been my mom ever since.”

Shamekia credits her mother with instilling within her a passion for helping others.

“She always tries to put a smile on people’s faces when they’re feeling down,” she said. “I also try to do the same when I’m out and about.”

‘A life preserver to a lot of people’

Those who have worked closely with O’Neal or have been part of the Mentor’s Project were unanimously heartbroken to learn of her coming retirement but also do not believe she will stop the work she does.

“I guess instead of getting paid to do it, she’ll volunteer,” Bibb County Sheriff David Davis said. “She was never getting paid enough to cover all the hours that she put into it anyway. So I’m sure she will still be a force to be reckoned with in our community, but having said that, she deserves to take a little time just to rest and relax and think about the next chapter in her life.”

Davis described O’Neal as “a life preserver to a lot of people” and said she would not hesitate to go into neighborhoods that others would not even consider going to and “that may even be dangerous.”

“June is seen as a life saver and so she’s able to go into those places and really save lives,” Davis said. “She certainly knew all of the right people in the community. She knew the right people that needed help and she knew the right people to contact to get the help.”

O’Neal has forged connections with some of the county’s wealthiest residents and many of its poorest. She is like a steel hinge connecting resources of the “haves” with the “have-nots.”

She has befriended grocers, lawyers, doctors, truckers, business owners and others she can call to meet the needs of students in the program.

Sometimes, she gets calls offering up 400,000-pound truckloads of cabbage, bananas or other items that can be given away. She gets the word out about it quickly.

Dee Simms, a former prosecutor for crimes against children and wife of Superior Court Judge Howard Simms, retired as executive director of the Crisis Line & Safe House of Central Georgia, a nonprofit serving victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault.

She has known O’Neal for roughly 30 years, including when she worked for the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services and for the Georgia Industrial Children’s Home.

“There’s a reason we call her the Mother Teresa of Macon,” Simms said. “She’s like nothing you’ll ever find again. … I couldn’t even begin to get you a realistic estimate of the number of us families and lives that she has touched.”

Simms described O’Neal as “tireless” and “one of the most committed people I’ve ever met in my life.”

She also doesn’t expect O’Neal’s retirement will mean her disappearance.

“I’ve never heard her say ‘no’ to anybody. It’s just not in her vocabulary,” Simms said. “She’s gonna stay involved. I know she will … I cannot imagine a Macon without her.”

Ethan Rutland, 26, participated in the Mentors Project and says O’Neal helped him straighten out his life’s trajectory.

“I was really bad in school,” Rutland said. “I dropped out of school three times and I got kicked out of Rutland High.”

O’Neal paired Rutland with a mentor. He straightened up and graduated then got scholarships to earn a degree in construction management. Now, he owns an insurance business, a reconditioning and restoration car business and is a day trader.

“I just turned my life around. She’s been a big part of that, her and Hank,” Rutland said, adding 

O’Neal is like a second mother to him. “I’ve never met no one like her.”

The Future

The O’Neals plan to travel upon June’s retirement. First to St. Simons Island, her favorite beach. Then to New York and St. Augustine, Florida. After that, they plan to head west.

“I’ve just always wanted to be on Route 66,” June O’Neal said.

Tracy Allen is expected to take the helm of the Mentors Project in February.

In O’Neal’s office on Mulberry Street one recent Monday, Allen mentioned that Hank O’Neal had asked her not to call June for at least the first two months after she retires.

O’Neal scoffed.

“Well, I’m going to do the Valentine’s Day tea for the girls and I don’t care what Hank says – And I’m going to do the Cherry Blossom tea too,” she said. “But I won’t be here in the office. I’m going to let Tracy do her thing.”

Allen said she worries about raising money without June, particularly if the economy worsens.

“I have nightmares about this,” Allen said, adding she is a bit more reserved and less bubbly than O’Neal.

The need for the Mentors Project, which was created in 1990, has grown tremendously over its lifespan.

O’Neal has worked hard to squirrel away donations for an endowment of the nonprofit. Annual tax filings with the IRS show it has about $1.4 million in assets, but most of it is for restricted purposes.

O’Neal said she looks forward to not having to raise money. At times, the nonprofit world can be cut-throat when it comes to donors.

June’s passion is people.

“I believe God puts people in your face every day and you can choose to help them or you can move on and not help them and somebody else is going to get the blessing,” she said. “I try to see the people God puts in front of my face.”