Faith at Work: A Justice and Advocacy series on how our faith informs and supports our work in the world.
Posted on by Steve Clark
We are called to be the neighbor we are meant to be
Jeanine Maruca smiled as she recalled a moment in her childhood. “I spoke at my kindergarten graduation and said I wanted to be a nurse to help sick people,” she said.
Jeanine did not become a nurse, but helping people has been the touchstone of her life since earning a master’s degree in social work at Virginia Commonwealth University. Early on in her career she played a key role in creating CARITAS and finding transitional housing for Richmond’s homeless.
For the past two decades she has been the executive director of Greater Richmond SCAN (Stop Child Abuse Now), a charitable organization whose mission is to prevent and treat child abuse and neglect in a number of Central Virginia localities.
She has been widely recognized and applauded. In 2019 she was named a VCU Alumni Star by the university’s School of Social Work. One letter nominating her for the award noted: “Jeanine is a healer, a connector, and above all, a doer.”
Jeanine became SCAN’s executive director in 2009 when it merged with an organization providing court-appointed advocates for children and families caught up in the legal system. Under her leadership SCAN has grown from one program to five family-support programs at six locations.
“We even started a preschool for children ages 3 to 6, the only one of its kind in Virginia,” she said during an interview in SCAN’s office on East Grace St. in downtown Richmond. The office is in the Winston House, an historic brick house built as a private residence in 1873-74.
Located in Manchester, the Circle Preschool Program offers traditional early educational experience and nurturing support for children who have been abused or neglected. Some of the children have witnessed a traumatic event, including murder or wounding by gunfire. The goal is to prepare the children to move on to mainstream classrooms and be successful.
The root causes of child abuse are many, including poverty, homelessness, lack of education, injustices in the legal system and political policies adversely affecting the lives of many people. SCAN is working to expose those root causes and change them. “We devote a lot of human capital by trying to change the economic, social and political systems in our community that cause children to be mistreated,” she said.
Referring to the Justice and Advocacy Ministry, she added: “That’s what St. Mark’s is trying to do. We are called to be the neighbor we are meant to be.”
SCAN’s work relies on a large number of volunteers and Jeanine would welcome fellow St. Mark’s members. “I would love to have anyone walk up to me at church and ask about volunteering.” --- Steve Clark
For detailed information visit SCAN’s website at grscan.com