Coreatha Larkins Memorial Guide

SUNRISE

October 25, 1960

SUNSET

June 29, 2017

Friday, July 7, 2017 at 11:00 A.M. Allen Temple A.M.E. Church 2101 North Lowe Street | Tampa, FL Presiding Elder James O. Williams, Sr. - Officiating Rev. Dr. Glenn B. Dames, Jr. - Eulogist

Celebrating the Season

Coreatha

Larkins

C

oreatha B. Larkins, affectionately known as “CoCo” the second of three siblings was born October 25, 1960 in Tampa, Florida to the late Cora Belle Larkins and William Ingram Larkins, Sr. Coreatha was a lifelong dedicated member of Allen Temple A.M.E. Church and worked tirelessly in the Church with passion and purpose.

By the time she was 13, she began holding youth leadership positions in the Young People’s Division (YPD), and began her long journey of serving God and the Church. She attended numerous conferences and workshops to become a more knowledgeable Christian and Church worker. This continued until God called her home to Glory.

She was an active leader in the church and served in many capacities to include: Class Leader, New Members Intake Coordinator, member of the Steward Board, the Voices of Allen Choir, Women’s Missionary Society, Local Lay Organization and Chairperson of many special events. In addition, she served as President of the West Coast Conference Women’s Missionary Society.

Coreatha was known for her kindness, gentle spirit, unwavering faith, and goodwill. She worked as a Program Director with Family Enrichment Center, Inc., was Prevention Director at Tampa Hillsborough Action Plan, Inc., and an Instructor with Hillsborough County Schools. Coreatha most recently served as the Assistant Camp Director for Allen Temple Neighborhood Development Corporation Summer Youth Program.

Coreatha graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School, Tampa, Florida. She furthered her education at BethuneCookman College earning a B.A. degree in Political Science. After graduating from Bethune-Cookman, she furthered her studies at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida earning the Master’s Degree in Public Administration. Lastly, she studied Basic Law at Howard University School of Law, Washington, D.C. and earned a Juris Doctor Degree. Coreatha was a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Throughout her life, she received numerous honors, recognition and awards.

Coreatha is survived by her loving brother, Frederick W. Larkins, Sr. and wife Toshua; Niece, Tiffany Larkins; Nephews: Frederick W. Larkins, Jr., (Stockbridge, GA), Calvin and Caleb Larkins; Great Nieces: Azariah and Jaaziah; Great Nephews: Titan and Vuitton; Cousins: Barbara Saffo and husband, James (Ruthledge, GA), Aaron Saffo; Anthony (Latosha) Saffo, Sacramento, California, Valerie McNeil, Telando Gardner, Jr., and Patricia Irving (Detroit, MI); God-Sister, Bernice Harvey. Her life and legacy will be remembered by her devoted church family and a host of other relatives and friends.

of Her Life

Celebrating the Season The Homegoing Celebration Rev. Dr. James O. Williams, Officiating

Presiding Elder of the Tampa District, Eleventh Episcopal District, AMEC

Processional/Viewing...………………………………...................................................“Soon and Very Soon” Hymn………………………………………………..................................................”It Is Well With My Soul” Prayer……….…………...........................................................Rev. Kirk Bogen, Pastor St. Luke AME Church Selection …………………….……………...................................................Allen Temple AMEC Mass Choir Scriptures Old Testament Psalm 27 Rev. Orenthia Mitchell, Allen Temple Epistle Reading I Corinthians 15:51-57 Rev. Janet O. Lee, Allen Temple Gospel Reading St. John 14:1-8 Presidng Elder Joyce Moore, St. Petersburg District

Selection …………………………………………………………………Allen Temple AMEC Mass Choir Reflections/Tributes (2 minutes please) As a Christian and Church Worker….....……………………………………………Maxine M. Douglas As a Class Leader…………………………………………………………………………...Cynthia Jones As a Missionary ……………………………………………………………………….Laurastine Lemon As a Friend………………………………………………………………………………Lisa Washington

Natalie Foster Resolutions……………………………………………………………………………..............Church Clerk (Acknowledgement of flowers, calls, visits, cards, etc.)

Video Tribute Obituary………………………………………………………………………….....................(Read Silently) “I Don’t Feel No Ways Tired” Selection ………………………………………………………………….Allen Temple AMEC Mass Choir Guest Soloist: Keith “Wonderboy” Johnson Eulogy ……………………………………………………………………Reverend Dr. Glenn B. Dames, Jr.

Pastor, Allen Temple AME Church - Tampa, FL

Recessional ……………….....………………………………………………………………………….Choir “When We All Get to Heaven”

of Her Time to Rest

The Larkins Legacy Times A glimpse into the everyday life and love of Sis. Coretha Larkins

She Guides Those Orphaned by AIDS

By SARAH SCHWEITZER | © St. Petersburg Times, published February 11, 2001

S

hyness propels him, but so does fear. Tears are hard to keep back when the topic is the mom you lost to AIDS on Dec. 6 and the dad you lost to AIDS on Dec. 5 a year earlier.

“You think much about mom?” the woman asks. The boy shakes his head. “You miss mom?” The boy nods his head. “You glad to be with Tim and Ann?” This time, the 8-year-old turns his head and a smile creases his face at the thought of the aunt and uncle who have taken him in to their small South Tampa apartment.

Coreatha Larkins won’t push him to confront feelings about his mom on this day. For now, she sends the boy skipping off to the corner store, a dollar bill in hand for chocolate doughnuts that will hopefully add weight to his slight frame, stunted by HIV and nearly swallowed by a polo shirt and shorts. If the boy is a survivor in the wake of wreckage left by AIDS, Larkins is his rudder.

For the past two years, Larkins has charted the lives of nearly 45 children left behind when a parent has died from AIDS. It is a job that often begins at the bleak precipice when the illness saps a mother’s energy. The mother’s denial must be overcome. Then comes the task of revealing what in many cases has been a terrible secret. And then, the real work: finding suitable homes for the children and securing legal clearance for the placements. “The point is to keep them out of the state’s care,” said Larkins, 40, who works for the Family Enrichment Center, a non-profit agency.

Her services are in increasing demand. The number of women, particularly minority women, afflicted with AIDS continues to rise, even as the total number of reported cases in Hillsborough in recent years has fallen.

There were 66 cases of women afflicted with AIDS between 1981 and 1990 and 778 such cases between 1991 and 2000. Meanwhile, the total number of AIDS cases has fallen from 441 in 1994 to 205 in 2000, according to the Hillsborough County Department of Health. Larkins’ work is a unique commodity. Experts say there are only two other cities, New York and Chicago, where such services are offered.

Giovanna Welch, director of development at the Family Enrichment Center, said the idea hatched when she and others noticed a growing number of children enrolled in the center’s respite program, which provides daylong child care for families impacted by AIDS. Unlike the program in Chicago, the Family Enrichment Center determined it would not tell mothers what they should do with their children. Instead, it would present choices and let the parent decide. “We came to it with the idea that you indicate to someone (that) we help you make the plans, but you steer this.” Williams said. “You’re the driver.”

For Larkins, a Tampa native who handles the touchy situations of her job in a direct but unobtrusive manner, the position is an extension of earlier work. She worked for the Department of Children and Families in Pinellas for seven years, investigating complaints of abuse in foster homes and later training parents in adopting specialneeds children. She began to work at the Family Enrichment Center in 1997 as an adoption specialist and, in October 1998, shifted to working with AIDS orphans. She lost her father when she was 7. But it is her 76-yearold mother, with whom she still lives, who propels her work, she says. “She was always very active in her church,” Larkins said. “We always saw her doing for other people.”

Larkins’ work requires a mixture of pursuit and relentless nudging.

Although they have sought out her services, clients often are not happy about needing them. She is a reminder of a sad trajectory, one that will end with the relinquishment of their children.

A recent afternoon found Larkins perched on a couch in a client’s home watching the woman whirl in circles, searching for something but not finding it. The woman rummages through a hallway closet.

Frantically, she peers behind dozens of figurines that dot shelves, hoping that the objects of her search somehow slipped between the angels’ wings. But the family photographs, the ones full of smiles, reminders of when she and her husband had faces flush and full and T-cells that had never before been counted, are nowhere.

The television blares; her son bellows for another bowl of Froot Loops. In the chaos, she despairs. If she can’t find photographs, how will she find the right place for her children to live when she’s gone?

“Come and sit down,” Larkins beckons. “We need to work on your plan, for when the time comes.” Larkins draws answers from the woman. Her 18-year-old daughter, the woman says in a clipped, wounded tone, has agreed to adopt her three other children. “Good,” Larkins says. “You know this means that your children won’t have to go to the state, and you can keep them together.” The woman jumps from the couch to begin the search for the photographs anew.

Worse are the visits to the homes of women near death but still refusing to explain the situation to their children.

“It’s so frustrating, but I can’t say anything,” Larkins says as she leaves the home of a woman who refused entreaties to tell her 14-year-old daughter why the veins in her arms bulge and why sores pock her skin. “I’m bound by confidentiality.” Larkins says that of dozens of placements she has made the past two years, none has collapsed, a testament to the value of early planning.

Tim and Ann Boyd are one example of such success, she says. The couple took in their nephew after his parents both succumbed to AIDS, a condition the couple learned about when the father died. The boy has been with them for a year. He calls them Tim and Ann, not Mom and Dad. “I want that until he’s more secure in knowing that I’m not going anywhere,” said Ann Boyd, 28, a homemaker with two children of her own. Larkins worries that the boy has suppressed his feelings about his loss. It could surface later, she tells the Boyds during a visit, and cause problems when he is a teenager. She urges the Boyds to allow him to take part in group counseling. The Boyds agree to think over the offer.

Larkins wanders into the boy’s bedroom. Two items sit atop his dresser: his AIDS medication and a framed photograph of his parents. Larkins is taken aback by the photograph. “That’s his mother?” she says quietly, for once revealing the pain of witnessing the destructive path of the illness. “She didn’t look anything like that when she came into the office. Wow.”

Working with parents before they die keeps children out of the state’s care afterward. It involves denial and death - and success stories.

Celebrating

Seasons

the

“May the work I’ve done speak for me”

Educational Accomplishments

• BA Degree in Political Science - Bethune Cookman University • Masters of Public Administration - Florida Atlantic University • Juris Doctorate Degree - Howard University

Church Activities

• Life Member of Allen Temple AME Church • Member of Steward Board • Board of Directors Allen Temple Neighborhood Development Corporation of Tampa, Inc. • Past President of West Coast Conference Womens Missionary Society

Non-Profit Community-Based Employment

• Family Enrichment Center, Program Director • Tampa Hillsborough Action Plan, Prevention Director

Fraternal Affiliation

• Member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated

of Her Accomplishments

of Precious Memories

- Active Pallbearers -

Calvin Larkins Caleb Larkins Telando Gardner

Gary Oliver Dequilla Branham Virgil Elkins

- Honorary Pallbearers –

Stewards and Trustees of Allen Temple A.M. E. Church - Flowers Attendants – West Coast Conference Women’s Missionary Society and Stewardess of Allen Temple A.M.E. Church

- Acknowledgment –

With sincere hearts, we say thank you to Allen Temple Church Family and Friends as words cannot express our heartfelt appreciation for all your kindness and for your expressions of love in the form of calls, flowers, visits, prayers and all acts of sympathy during our time of sorrow.

The Larkins Family

- Interment -

Memorial Park Cemetery 2225 E Dr M.L.K. Jr. Blvd, Tampa, FL 33610 Lunch will be served in the Fellowship Hall of the Church.

Services and Arrangements

“A Wilson Service” Wilson Funeral Home 3000 N 29th Street | Tampa, FL 33605