Oprah Winfrey Foundation
gives Cobb nonprofit $50k
for rental assistance
STAFF REPORTS
We Thrive in Riverside Renters Association
received a $50,000 grant from the Oprah
Winfrey Charitable Foundation, We Thrive
founder Monica DeLancy announced.
DeLancy is a renters’ rights activist in
the Six Flags area. The grant will “provide
immediate and much needed rental
assistance to local families,” she said in a
news release.
Local nonprofit Sting Inc. will disburse the
funds.
“Empowering our next generation
is difficult when families are faced with
high rents and minimal assistance,” Sting
Executive Director Geneva Vanderhorst said.
“We are pleased that the Oprah Winfrey
Charitable Foundation is supporting families
in Cobb County during this challenging time.
This endeavor will have a positive and lasting
impact on our local youth and their future
success.”
Last year, Hunger Free America gave
We Thrive $10,000 to support “community
outreach activities in marginalized
communities.”
Cobb’s first baby of 2021
born to Austell couple
BY SHANNON BALLEW
lora Reiman was welcomed into the world
shortly after midnight at Wellstar Kennestone
Hospital, the first baby born in Cobb County
in 2021.
Above: Pictured
are Monica
DeLancy and
volunteer Arthur
Brown.
Above: Alora Reiman is Cobb County’s first baby of 2021, born 12:21 a.m. Jan. 1
to parents Kristen and Matthew Reiman at Wellstar Kennestone Hospital.
Alora was born at 12:21 a.m. Friday to
parents Kristen and Matthew Reiman of
Austell, weighing 4 pounds 11 ounces. She’s
the couple’s first child.
The newborn made her entrance a little
early and had an original due date of Jan. 16,
her father told the MDJ.
“My wife went in for her doctor’s
appointment, and her blood pressure was a
little high, so they sent her into triage, and
they decided they were going to induce
her,” he said. “At seven o’clock her water
just broke, and then at 12:21 our daughter
was born.”
Alora and her mother were sleeping Friday
afternoon after the family’s long day. The new
parents are “tired, but very happy,” Matthew
Reiman said.
“My reaction was like, ‘I can’t believe we
made something like this.’ She was beautiful,”
he said.
Matthew Reiman is training to become
and emergency medical technician, and
Kristen Reiman is an interior designer. As
parents of the first baby of the year, the
couple received a gift bag with a stuffed
animal and other toys.
Wellstar Health System reports it delivers
15,000 newborns a year at seven of its 11
hospitals. At Wellstar Kennestone, about
5,600 babies are delivered a year.
After 10 months, vaccinated
Marietta doctor set to
rejoin family
BY ALEKS GILBERT
On March 13, a Friday, Marietta neurosurgeon
Franklin Lin left the home he shared with his
wife and two of his children for a motel.
He has relatives in Taiwan, and he had
been getting updates “on how bad things
were getting on that side of the world.” He
knew the novel coronavirus was serious, and
he would likely be exposed to it as a surgeon
for Wellstar Health System, where he worked.
Lin said he thought he could protect his
family and set an example for their neighbors
by moving out.
“We were going to be responsible, not
vectors of transmission,” he recalled thinking.
Lin and his wife, Annesia, thought the
voluntary separation would last two weeks.
But in January, more than nine months
later, Lin was set to rejoin his family, having
received his first dose of a coronavirus
vaccine. Shortly into the pandemic, he said,
it became obvious the U.S. did not have the
virus’s spread under control, postponing his
homecoming.
“It was just always kind of simmering,” he
said. After a summer surge, new cases began
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2021 | COBB LIFE 45