Latosha Grayson says her job as program supervisor at Garden Park Adult Day Center is a natural fit.
“I’ve always been passionate about helping people, so I knew (my job) would be something similar to social work,” she said.
Grayson, who is originally from Winona, graduated from Winona High School in 2000. She went to Holmes Community College on a full basketball scholarship and earned an associate’s degree in social work; then she completed a bachelor’s degree in social science/sociology in 2004 at Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kansas, also on a basketball scholarship. During her junior year at Tabor, she got a job as a community support worker at Prairie View, a nonprofit similar to Life Help mental health center in Greenwood.
At Prairie View, she interacted with a variety of young people, most of whom were in foster care. Many of them also had been abused or neglected or suffered from mental illness. After graduating, she stayed with Prairie View as a case manager, focusing on middle-school-to-high-school-age youths.
For a time, she worked in a summer camp program that offered the young people activities that their parents often couldn’t afford, such as trips to a swimming pool, skating rink, water park or zoo.
“Some of my kids I would pick up, they would be honored just to go to McDonald’s,” she said.
She said she enjoyed the work in Kansas, but the cold winters didn’t agree with her — and her parents also were aging. So she moved back to Mississippi in 2007. Soon after she returned, her father, Samuel Townsend Sr., was diagnosed with cancer, which he battled until his death in 2010. Her mother, Rosie Townsend, lives with her in Greenwood now.
Grayson started working with Life Help at the Ray Tribble Senior Center in 2007 and then began offering psychosocial therapeutic activities for the elderly, first at Golden Age Nursing Home and then at Crystal Health and Rehab. She started at Garden Park in April 2014.
The job involves a lot of paperwork, and the field is always changing, but she loves it.
“I am hands-on,” she said. “I do a lot of marketing. I’m out going to the doctors’ offices and kind of making the town aware of our program.”
A goal of hers is to spread awareness of Alzheimer’s disease in the community so that people can recognize its signs and know how to deal with it. She has been involved in fundraising and preparations for the annual Walk to End Alzheimer’s, which is coming up Oct. 14.
In this kind of work, “I learn something every day,” she said.
She also has added to her educational credentials, earning a master’s degree in counseling and psychology online from the University of West Alabama in 2014 as well as certification as a mental health therapist. Now she is in the process of enrolling in a program to become a licensed professional counselor, also online through West Alabama.
Family remains important to Grayson, too. She has been married to Lelavie Grayson Sr. since January 2009, and they have a 6-year-old daughter, Kamaree, who attends St. Francis of Assisi School.
Latosha Grayson’s older brother, Samuel Townsend Jr., lives in Winona, and her younger sister, Channa Woodall, lives in Grenada. Most weekends, she either goes to the home of one of her siblings or entertains them at hers. They cook and play basketball or kickball with their children.
“That’s basically what I mainly like to do, is just be with my family,” she said. “I’m a big family person.”
Having played sports since childhood, she also believes in staying in shape. At least four or five days a week, she gets up at 5:30 a.m., goes to the gym and works out. Often she and her husband work out and ride bikes together. She also has passed that love of athletics on to her daughter.
“I just turned 36 July 2, so I want to kind of age like wine,” she said with a laugh.
She attends Young Chapel Baptist Church in Duck Hill, the church she grew up in, near where many of her relatives still live. And given her strong ties to the area, she plans to stick around for a while.
“I’m definitely a country girl,” she said.
•Contact David Monroe at 581-7236 or dmonroe@gwcommonwealth.com.
