AS a mother of four children, Dorothy Roberts is aware of the joys and challenges of parenthood. The pastor of Harvest Reapers Outreach Support Ministry in Hollywood, she reaches out to the struggling single parent on May 12, the eve of Mother’s Day.

Roberts will launch Single Parent Ministry at The Piccadilly Restaurant (45 Hollywood Boulevard). The event offers counselling to not just mothers who are raising a child, or children, on their own; but fathers in a similar situation.

“We expect an abundance of single parents. Some might get diapers, baby food, anything that can help in some way. I was a single parent but being a dentist I could support myself. But I still know the anger that many women feel,” said Roberts.

While participants at Single Parent Ministry are eligible for children’s products, they will also be privy to a motivational session with Dr. Rosemarie Lewis, a Jamaican psychiatrist who practices in South Florida.

The objective, Roberts pointed, out is to build self-esteem.

“A lot of them may not want the products but you know what? It gives you great satisfaction knowing you reached out and touched someone’s heart,” she said.
Having operated an outreach program in Hollywood for nearly twenty years, Roberts knows the problems many single parents face. With assistance from the Feeding South Florida food bank, she and her husband Scott have provided nourishment and counselling to thousands of people in that region.
Roberts is originally from Mandeville, a quiet, rural town in central Jamaica. Divorced from her first husband, she moved to South Florida over 30 years ago with her children — three girls and a boy.

With Scott, she oversees Harvest Reapers Outreach Support Ministry, a non-denominational church that provides daily counseling and feeding from its 46th Avenue base in Hollywood.