A few weeks back, Meryl’s Safe Haven had the good fortune to be invited to an internal meeting with a local partner. Often, I don't name names but as a newbie, I want to say the hype about the Hanover Insurance Group Foundation is something to believe; get it? "Don't believe the hype." Dash of old school. Anyhow, the meeting was an opportunity for some of the members of the organization to get to know more about us as an organization and an opportunity for them to engage in, external, meaningful work; they put care packages together for our Transitional Youth Empowerment program and donated winter boots. As a new, small, organization, the opportunity to talk about MSH is everything including free marketing - on the surface, of course. There’s a deep dive of cause and advocacy we won’t go into today, but what’s better is what tends to happen after I talk about why we were founded - the flow of dialogue. Often, colleagues in these spaces learn things they never knew (or would have thought) about each other; stories of homelessness, DCF engagement, and/or the processing of grief. As someone who used to facilitate trainings, it’s amazing to see how the sharing of my story and the organization’s “why” gives others courage to share theirs. Many facilitators couldn’t pay for that kind of engagement or immediate connection.
Trust me; I know.
Try facilitating a training on having difficult conversations and asking folks to engage in a meaningful way while the person they need to have a difficult conversation with is in the room. It feels a lot like… “Bueller…?”
The reality is, they aren’t the only ones who get to learn about each other. I’ve said this before, but it wasn’t until I started doing research that I began to understand myself as it related to my own educational journey as a first-generation college student. During my time in that meeting, while some team members packed, I engaged in a discussion with someone from the team - an interview really, without a job offer on the other side. He wanted to know more about my journey -beyond the website. As I listened to myself and his feedback, it became as clear to me as it was to him that I had very unintentionally laid the foundation for Meryl’s Safe Haven on my journey without knowing my arrival would be here:
Tutor
AmeriCorp member
Volunteer Engagement coordinator
Teen Center director
TRIO advisor
YouthWorks director
Pre-adoptive parent
Lions and tigers and youth.. Oh My!
While I fancy myself to be a good writer, I couldn’t have written my journey if I tried while trying to escape the field of education in every aspect possible. Of course, there are some areas I would re-write with loss being at the top of the list. If I throw in my curiosity of technology and interest of wanting to fix anything with a side of once working in retail and fast food, you have a day in the life of a CEO working in shelter programming; no day is the same but every hat brings about a unique set of rewards and challenges. The seat of a CEO is sometimes uncomfortable! Where the rubber meets the road is where you realize your passion is also what pays the bills and every decision you make has the opportunity to impact someone (or many someones) in very real ways, for better or worse - you don't take it lightly.
Often, I am asked what my biggest challenge is/has been with the founding and starting of Meryl’s Safe Haven, what books did I read, etc. Honestly, it’s not an easy answer so you wouldn't be surprised that the following came up in my research:
attracting and retaining top talent
navigating economic uncertainty
making tough decisions while balancing short-term needs with long term goals
Of course there are more, but the short answer is, there have been many challenges and books but none of this is textbook. The medium (or middle) answer is everything has been a great learning experience; and the long answer is passion. When you put passion and a desire to be of service on the line so much of self and self-care goes out of the window, you simply have to tap into your own "why". What we know for sure is social services is a high burnout field and passion and desire to be a beacon of hope to someone is often how people in this field spend their dying days. I once heard someone say: MSH might not have all the (financial) resources, yet, but they are always willing to come to the table; my goal is to never change that because if you knew Meryl, you would understand why it’s who we are and why providing a safe haven is what we do.
As we prepare to close out 2024, I leave you with this:
this time last year, MSH was preparing to enter an agreement to be the service providers of the Safety Net in the city of Worcester. Since opening our doors on January 26, 2024, at that location, we have placed 30 families - 20 families exited for EA placements, seven have exited for permanent housing, one family transitioned to another Safety Net, and we are preparing to transition the remaining two, likely, into EA placements - over 115 people have walked through our doors and I have directly spoken to all of them. We will soon clean up and relaunch this space
we opened the doors to our congregate shelter and scattered sites in April and February, respectively. Our congregate houses 11 to 12 families on a given day and our scattered sites house three families. We have had two families transition out into permanent housing and several others preparing to do the same
we have opened the doors to our youth program and are preparing to place participants - referrals are being contacted on a daily basis
Even with those numbers, as a CEO, I recognize we are only scratching the surface. Know, whether you support Meryl’s Safe Haven through a one-time donation #GivingTuesday, attending our 2nd Annual Rent Party fundraiser, or sharing information about who we are and what we do we are grateful because there is no doubt that we all have the ability to impact someone in very real ways just by being in community whether you are a CEO or not.
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