Is Your Leadership Style Inspiring Loyalty or Frustration?

[0:00]  I want to jump back a little bit to the Northstar exercise why did you think it was so important for you to kind of really reflect and get pen to paper about what was going to be that beautiful middle zone of fulfillment with all the things that you were trying to accomplish do you remember where your mindset was at at that point in time yeah honestly um you know I was in the throws of Parenthood you know the kids were in elementary middle and high school and so you know one of the things that I was really reflecting on is how you know that almost to build that that Foundation right that sustainability for our family and that's kind of where my mindset was you know it was one of those things where um I was sent to a conference and it was you know this is an exercise to do but the conference gave me I think three or four days of of quiet it was in Phoenix it was like in a retreat center it was just the Solitude

[0:48]  and so I was reflecting was I was going over that space that we sometimes don't create for ourselves with busyness and how it can be so transformative when we have an opportunity to really listen to ourselves creating that space for ourselves to reflect and kind of map out where we want our lives to go is such a valuable exercise but I don't think a lot of people have the ability to create that space in their lives as I would say actively as they really want to and so it's really cool that you actually had the opportunity to get that space that quiet to be able to write everything out and kind of figure out where your life was going to go all right guys welcome back to a brand

[1:39]  new episode of the heart and hustle podcast now I'm sitting across this digital table with an amazing leader today the CEO at advocates for children Rachel welcome to the show well thank you so much glad to be here with you today Rachel it's going to be a really cool conversation because you know the way or at least the place that we're at kind of ins society today our youth our children need more support I've been having some amazing conversations with leaders and the topic or the simple phrase keeps coming up it takes a village to raise a child and with the amazing work that you guys are doing at serving your community and advocating for children who need additional support to help them navigate this journey of life is something I was so inspired by when we had our initial conversation so as we kind of get into today's conversation we're going to touch on the

[2:27]  amazing work that you guys do your ideas of leadership and advocating in this space the impact of curiosity and leaning into change but also the dynamic challenges that you guys kind of face along this journey and building such an amazing organization but before we dive into that I'd like to talk about how you kind of got pointed at a very very early age into doing this work so the one thing that we should talk about is both of your parents were actually uh Salvation Army individuals I want to talk about how that kind of formulated your perspective of giving back to the community and how maybe very early on that pointed you towards exactly where we're at here today yeah so my uh parents come from a uh the Salvation Army background um when I was 5 years old you go to the Salvation Army training college so I accompan them to a

[3:15]  seminary when I was five basically and um so that's when it started for me and getting to see their Ministry and so you know we got to move around all of uh kind of the Northeast we were in Pennsylvania most of that time growing up but they got to see their different Ministries that they had and so you know one of the most impactful ones for me when was when I was a teenager they were stationed uh that's what you call when you're given your your church they were stationed on the north side of Pittsburgh and it was specifically a homeless shelter but it was also a church so they would be a day shelter during the day feeding showering all of those things but on Sunday morning uh it would be a worship center and so the same gentleman would come in and my sister and I as teenagers that's where we went to church every Sunday and so we

[4:03]  sat amongst the the the congregation you know and you smelled all the smells and we heard all the sounds and you know it just became very normal uh to be around them and to hear their stories and their journey and you know it has really made a huge impact on me um the way that my father cared for them my mother cared for them too but you know these were some Rough and Tumble guys so it was my father really doing that Ministry and everyone who came across his path he treated them like a a person uh not someone who was homeless not someone who was a different skin color they were just a person and that really has impacted me I think the most is that when I see people I see a person and I remember um I was probably 20 I had just started my career and I invited someone to come to church with me it was still

[4:51]  at the Salvation Army but it was a different Salvation Army and so it was a woman's program that day and she came and we had the the meeting and then I remember after the meeting she says to me Rachel why are you with these people and to me I didn't see anything but she pointed out someone didn't have teeth and someone you know didn't smell the best and all of these different things things that I had just grown accustomed to as normal and so that Ministry uh and their their influence on my life to just love others the way that God would love them and see them is something I've carried all throughout my career it's an amazing story to talk about because it's so easy right and so human for us to look at differences in others but the thing that we don't see when we look at someone who's going through a time of hardship like

[5:37]  homelessness is the challenges that they've overcome during their lifetime and unfortunately they're just in a position where they need a little additional help so it sounds like very early on your parents instilled the ideas and the morals in you that we are here to serve others no matter what their ethnic background no matter what their gender no matter what their race and that formulated your perspective on the World to just create better opportunities to serve people and that story of compassion is something that I wish more people could experience today yeah that that is what we need in this world today right all the divisiveness that just keeps coming at us um it's it's not healthy because at the core of everything we are just people on a journey with our own life experiences some of us have these wonderful experiences that allow us to think that we might be better than someone but at

[6:24]  the core of who we are we are just all human beings and you know my family one of another reasons is important to me is multi-racial you know we are Armenian we're black we're white We're Latino and so to have all of that culminate my family is so important to me that that people see us because I've been places where um maybe I have to go in the door first you know you know because I don't know if the rest of my family is going to be accepted in those places just because of a skin color or just because of an accent or whatever it might be and so I want to definitely make that a passion of mine and one of my highest values as a divers inclusion oh Rachel this is so near and dear to my heart I am a biracial man my father is black my mother is white and me being light-skinned right I was always I grew up in a household where we

[7:13]  were taught to accept others no matter how they looked right but there's something that's interesting when you grow up in a household like that it's so interesting to think about your perspective on the world of just accepting others and when I was very young I found myself thinking about how I didn't see the difference or the difference between my Spanish friends or my African-American friends or my white friends I just saw everybody together but I think that that's an experience that both of us have that was kind of ingrained in the way that we were raised which also helps us look at the world in a little bit more of an accepting way because there's so much judgment that can come at us depending on what our skin color looks like but we're kind of the in between and I say that with all due respect um it helps us see the world in a different way and my heart goes out to you because we have that connection yeah thank you and you know my daughter um she's getting her PhD in sociology

[8:00]  and she's a race scholar and she's biracial white and black and you know she has helped me see the world differently too because I grew up kind of in that bubble of the 90s where we all thought we got along we thought we solved a lot of problems you know in the last decade they've come roaring back all of a sudden and so she has really helped me see okay it's good to see everybody kind of equal but there's also things that make us very unique and separate and we want to make sure that we also honor those special things about us and not kind of lump all people together but so that has been eye opening for me too and being able to recognize you know you're right there are some things that are very uniquely you that need to be appreciated and celebrated wow um I didn't think that we were going to have this sense of connection here but it's so easy for me to empathize with all the things you're

[8:49]  talking about because I've had this lived experience at the same time and I just appreciate you for kind of you know sharing some of your story and that's such a huge part of this podcast so no one of the things that we're going to talk about now so we're 20 years old in our story we bring a friend to church right and she's like hey don't you see the differences in everybody else who's here and you say I'm I'm fortunately I guess I didn't have that lens on the same way that you did how what kind of happens next in our professional career and kind of finding our calling back towards this type of work yeah so um I uh was married um shortly after or right before actually that all happened um and then ended up uh working for a nonprofit um not a nonprofit but a company that serves nonprofits and I did that for a while but my heart wasn't in pushing paper all day long I guess and so my

[9:36]  heart was where the people are and so I got involved with um another Salvation Army and was working as a youth minister with them for a while and decided I wanted to explore full-time Ministry and follow kind of in my parents footsteps so I actually ended up in the same place when I was 5 years old in this very same resident building living with my four-year-old the same building the same building wow yeah with my four-year-old uh and I started my course of Seminary with the Salvation Army and so I met my now husband there we have been um married to 25 years next year uh and we had a full-time Ministry together with the Salvation Army for about a decade and then uh I saw the impact kind of one of the things we'll get into change later but one of the things that makes change acceptable and easier for me is the fact that I moved so many times in

[10:24]  my life but then I started watching the impact it was having on my oldest daughter and and the struggle she was having as we moved to New communities and so my husband and I decided we're going to find Ministry in a different format and so we left full-time Ministry and moved to from Boston to Georgia and so when I was in Georgia I did start my career back with the Salvation Army in a lay position and a non-pastoral role and um spent a couple of years there um but it was back in the you know kind of doing more paper work it was in homeless but it was on the outskirts of homelessness right and so there was an opportunity to work in downtown Atlanta with a Statewide agency called Lutheran Services of Georgia at the time that was working with refugees and with homelessness and with children and foster care and Foster families in all

[11:12]  of those um program Lines were're Just Singing to my heart and I knew that's where I wanted to be where I could have a larger impact and so I started working um with them and then my children were starting to age and that commute into downtown Atlanta got to be a little bit too much so I found a local Ministry called must Ministries which was working with everyone who was on The Fringe so there was a homeless shelter and and long-term housing projects for people experiencing homelessness who had mental health and chronic health issues and so really um thought that this was a great step to be able to be closer to my children and then to be able to still be in line with that Ministry so um spent I just covered 20 years really fast but you know all along it's the same Journey it's just how can I help serve others how can I help those at risk

[12:00]  marginalized populations and so um really so was with um Lutheran Services working with a lot of families and foster children and all of that and then went to homelessness and then someone came to me um 2018 with um a role in a little town called carsville Georgia and I call it a little town but it's um someone told me other day it's not so little but you know when you're used to kind of urban centers like atanta and Boston it's a it's a little town um but it was kind of a marriage of everything that I loved in in one location and I was digging through some notes getting ready for today and I found an old Journal as I was reading a book called true north and in it they made you go through an exercise if you've ever heard of the Hedgehog uh principle I think Jim Collins wrote about it in good to great

[12:48]  I have not it's kind of like a three Circle ven diagram so it it's where what you're deeply passionate about um what you know you're really good at and what you're you know you're motivational income driver right where they all kind of come together and if you get those three things to come together you're going to have the greatest impact and so this journal was from 2012 when I was at Lutheran services in my ven diagram or my um Hedgehog principal was this idea of breaking generational poverty through education and helping young adults and children find a strong foundation and then um the other part of it was my organizational skills and my um Knack at program design and and helping develop those things and the

[13:35]  last thing was making sure that my children had all their needs met right that was my economic driver there and so really this opportunity in Cartersville married all of those things and when I saw that I'm like no wonder I am just having the time of my life here because I am in that sweet spot of making doing what I love using the skills that I have and being able to be there for my children I I really want to dive into that um something that's in the front of my mind right now is the idea of when you're younger and you have to move around a lot you develop a skill set of adaptability being able to put yourself in uncomfortable situations meeting new people things like that um I also moved around a lot I've been I lived in Seattle Detroit South Carolina Vegas Hawaii back to Vegas and soon I'll be

[14:23]  moving back to Hawaii again I always think about as I'm a little bit more perspective on my life that my ability to move around a lot as a child right and as a young adult shaped my ability to be able to meet a lot of different people where they were no matter what their differences were I could in my insert myself into different Social Circles do you think you kind of were able to hone that skill of adaptability when you were moving around a lot in your earlier years of life as well yeah absolutely I think I had challenges um building meaningful relationships to be honest with you but that the fact that I used to call it you know that I could hat on to whatever room that I was in and kind of adapt to being able to fit in that setting and so I definitely agree that was that did come out of moving a lot one of my uh I

[15:10]  just ran into one of my uh second cousins the other day and he was we were kind of talking about the challenges of moving a lot his my whole family was in cultur you know in the Salvation Army right so cousins and aunts and uncles and you there's a lot of it's just a just a legacy of service in my family but anyways we were talking about the fact that you know that it it makes you stronger it makes you uniquely adapt for certain career choices that when certain challenges come your way you're able to deal with them in a different way because you know nothing is ever really set in stone um and so I was just encouraging him you know that to lean into all of those things because they really are great strengths they really are I mean they I I how do I want to say this um I often think about people who haven't had the

[16:00]  opportunity to put themselves or life hasn't given them the opportunities to put themselves in uncomfortable situations right that adaptability as life kind of changes and wains in our life is a skill set that we can all really lean into and so I'm so glad that you kind of touched on that I want to jump back a little bit to the Northstar exercise so at this point in time in 2012 we're going through this exercise why did you think it was so important for you to kind of really reflect and get pen to paper about what was going to be that beautiful middle zone of fulfillment with all the things that you were trying to accomplish do you remember where your mindset was at at that point in time yeah honestly um you know I was in the throws of Parenthood you know the kids were in elementary middle and high school and so you know one of the things that I was really reflecting on is how you know that almost to build that that Foundation

[16:49]  right that sustainability for our family and that's kind of where my mindset was but a lot of it came out of you know it was one of those things where um I was sent to a conference and it was you know this is an exercise to do but the conference gave me I think three or four days of of quiet it was in Phoenix it was like in a retreat center so it wasn't like you know it was a hotel it it it was just the Solitude and I I had P I'm not a journalist and I had pages and pages and pages and pages of journaling that I did when I had that Clarity ah head and just time to think and so I was reflecting was I was going that space that we sometimes don't create for ourselves with busyness and how it can be so transformative when we have an opportunity to really listen to ourselves I was listening to an amazing

[17:36]  podcast and I'm not going to be able to pull the name of the guest who was on the show but he was talking about a concept which is really interesting it's called The Busy trap he said it's interesting to think about how busy we make ourselves and often we find ourselves in this cyclical cycle of being busy meaning I'm busy today so that means I'm going to be busy tomorrow and because I'm busy tomorrow I'm going to be busy the next day creating that that space for ourselves to reflect and kind of map out where we want our lives to go is such a valuable exercise but I don't think a lot of people have the ability to create that space in their lives as I would say actively as they really want to and so it's really cool that you actually had the opportunity to get that space that quiet to be able to write everything out and kind of figure out where your life was going to go that's so that's so encouraging for other people yeah busy I love it that you know the Trap of it it really is and

[18:25]  sometimes I think we do it to ourselves maybe because we know those thoughts are there and if we stop we have to address them you know and at least that's some of my my issue with making sure that I'm always busy I totally agree I mean the scariest things right are those thoughts or those things that we have to kind of I would say address but it's so much easier to say I'm so busy right now I don't have time to be able to look at those types of things um which is another conversation for another podcast as well so now so now we have an opportunity right where we're going from the big city of Atlanta to the smaller town now here in Georgia and now we're doing the work that we're doing what does the landscape look like of the organization when you first start engaging as the leader what is kind of the landscape so we can kind of inform the audience yeah so the organization um was a well-known in the community uh organization that

[19:14]  was doing fantastic work around child well-being and Welfare so um there's a children's home there's some prevention programming around inhome parenting there's a court appointed special Advocates AC classup programming and so the the budget size is around around a million dollars and it had just gone through a little bit of turmoil with um the exit of a longtime CEO with the shorter term uh one that followed them and some board inner dynamics that were going on and so um it was really though the reputation and the strength of the organization was always there I want to know some of the best leaders that I've had on the podcast frame challenges like what we're talking about some a little bit of instability in an organization as an opportunity when you knew a little

[20:03]  bit about the landscape of the organization you know we've got some leadership turnover we've got some instability and some things that are happening what was your mindset in coming into this work did you come in with a confident attitude did you look at this as a challenge or an opportunity what were you thinking yeah so this was to be my first uh you know CEO role and so before that I was a VP of programs and a director of operations and did some other social service Statewide work but never um been at the helm per se and so you know of course there's a little bit of insecurity and impostor symtom starts sneaking in and all of this but I knew um I knew the mission and I knew the organization I knew the potential that lied in it and and knowing um like I said that this was kind of in that sweet spot for me I do have to say when I first pulled up there I think I might

[20:50]  have told you when we chatted I said Lord what am I doing here right this is nothing that I would have you know when you do your five and your 10 year you know you're doing all these goals and things like that it would have never have been this particular organization right uh in in in this location but this has just been I told you a few minutes ago this is my sweet spot and so you know one of the things that I did um I kind of came up with this plan to kind of lay that Foundation it was missing some Foundation you know that there it was missing some structure that would allow it to grow so spent a lot of time you know the first six months to a year looking at policy writing policies that didn't exist um looking at our accounting systems you know making sure that we made improvements in that area um working with my board um changing

[21:38]  bylaws to put term limits in place you know just just everything that I knew that we needed as a foundation if we were going to be a successful growing organization and so spent that time doing that but um long before I got there there was always a dream because we were kind of in rental properties and properties outside the city limits and there was a dream to come together as one campus with all of our programming most importantly to to provide some ease for our clients that were going Here There and Everywhere trying to get to us right because we' say okay no you're in the wrong building you need to go down the street or whatever that might look like and so that you know really wasn't um that was an existing Vision that I was able to grab a hold of but was able to elevate I guess the vision that they might have had you know there's a saying

[22:27]  um God does does not test the equipped he equips the tested right and I feel like you were put into a situation where you could put faith into the process and kind of recognize that this is your sweet spot but making that jump into a new organization first time as being you know the CEO of this organization had to be a little scary so what did your kind of support system look like in these early days and some of those conversations that maybe you're having about the challenge that was ahead of you yeah so I had a really great friend um she's since moved out of state so I wish she was still in state cuz I miss having these conversations with her who was really a great um listening ear the previous uh CEO from must Ministries was a great example and you know was there and some of the teammates that I made um when I was must I was able to call on

[23:14]  them for advice and you know they they came and helped me and I'm still Contracting with some and hiring some and uh so that's been wonderful a really great um person who had a just a listening spirit and heart and would really hear you you know she uh was there for me so and my husband uh and my family my children um what was this I think I still had two at home when I first started working here so they were understanding they've always been understanding of long hours and long nights for Mom but they enjoyed the mission and seeing coming up in the Shel seeing the shelter and seeing the impact of my work they really you know didn't see it where kind of paralleled them we have a lot of had a lot of teenagers we still have a lot of teenagers in the

[24:00]  home and so it was it was good for them to see that another side of life do you ever think about the example that you're setting for your children in the work that you do I mean time is our most valuable resource but when we invest that time into supporting others it sets a subconscious example for the work that you're going to do maybe later in life very similar to what your parents did I mean there's a lot of intentionality in being somebody who's going to give back to the community and I wonder if you ever have an opportunity to kind of pause and have a sense of gratitude for the example that you're setting yeah you know I no I guess I have't I'm very proud of my children and their career pth that they have chosen I think I told you my oldest um as she is working on her PhD she's also working full-time for the

[24:47]  City of Atlanta and their Contin of care for the homeless population and so I'm just you know three generations now working with that population so I'm very proud of her and the work she's done doing middle daughter is um at ug right now working on her Early Education degree she's already been certified as a esol teacher so that she'll be able to work she wants to work in those inner cities she wants to work with those populations my youngest son probably has the purest heart but he is the capitalist of the group so we'll forgive him later but he's not done yet we will see where he ends up that's that that's that's the youngest uh youngest sibling energy right the one who goes against against the path as well I totally understand where that's coming from um I want to I want to talk a little bit about

[25:34]  leadership so let's talk a little bit about your growth as a leader in this role right when we are coming from a different space we don't have the title of CEO often casting the vision right being the person who can invest into others that skill set can be challenging for a lot of leaders how did you learn lean into the learning process to show up as the best leader that you possibly could yes so I love to read um I don't do as much as I like to um I found myself reading like articles now more than books I want to get back into the habit of reading books but so I would whatever challenging situation was coming up you know um I would definitely look and search out search up articles and information I could find on that belonging to professional associations we have one um with the foster care Ro cult together Georgia here and you know

[26:23]  we get together to learn together and um the leader of that Wanita Stedman she is a great mentor and is an encouraging ear um also belong we were we ended up during this journey with me becoming nationally accredited by social current um and so being able to draw from their resources and in their network is important as well but um and then again using previous peers and previous CEOs I've worked with and learning the good and the bad right the things that I knew I wanted to take away from that Journey with them and things that I might do differently and so all of those I think culminated together to make my style but I think at the root of all of that is one of authenticity and integrity and so you know being my authentic self is very important to me I I have those

[27:09]  boundaries you're not going to know all of my deepest darkest Secrets but you're going to know who I am and you're going to get what you see is what you get and I think especially with our younger generation and I know we'll we'll get to this a little bit later too but you know that authenticity is so important um you know they want to see that the you know I think a lot of my parents generation there was this um where you had to appear a certain way and you had to look a certain way and behave a certain way so you almost created a facade and so I really wanted to break through that and make sure that that my true self is showing I mean isn't this the same type of challenge that we're seeing today with our youth as well I mean I think about the social pressures right of being a copy and paste version of the people we see on social media and things

[27:56]  like that it's very interesting to think about how authenticity often is the thing or the light that shines through everybody else who's trying to be someone else so why did you kind of bring that up when it comes to the younger generation about authenticity I'd love to kind of double click on that well yeah I think um I think they can sense it so you're right to the one degree on you know they want to replicate and you know we all of those big cups I forget what they're called we don't have one in my house but everybody needs to to mirror and replicate the Stanley the Stanley that's it the Stanley so um you know so you know there are those Trends and I see my kids you know get on those Tik Tok Trends and do those certain things with that replication but I think what's what's lacking and and you know what you can't get from a screener through that replication is those relationships right

[28:45]  and you don't want those relationships to to be that right you think you do but what you really want to do is for someone to know your name and someone to love you and for someone to show you you know themselves so that you can then in turn show show them yourself and then knowing that there's no judgment you know there's no acceptance I the younger generation too right now is so quick to not hear the other side and just automatically cut you off and so you know if we can break down some of that with authenticity to know hey I'm just trying my best right I might not have 100% of the same values but if we got 70 we're doing something we can build on that right and so you know that's something I want to show as a leader oh man that's so beautiful yeah I

[29:33]  mean if we seek to understand right we can eliminate a lot of the disagreements and misunderstandings that we have just the the intentionality right of slowing down and saying okay I understand your opinion let me understand why you think that so I can come from my perspective and better understand where the motivation is coming from as a skill set that I hope the next generation is going to be able to lean into a little bit um I do want to talk a little bit about one of our topics year which is addressing homelessness and um the cyclical poverty that comes from a generational perspective can you kind of double click on that for us and see what your unique perspective on this is yeah so um I'll just give an example the other day we had the opportunity we had a donor give us some tickets to a Falcons game here in town and so we had the opportunity to take some of our youth with us and my

[30:20]  husband and I took them um and got to know them like I was just saying kind of peel down some layers right and so one of the young ladies that went with us uh she was 19 and she was telling me her story of living in and out of homeless shelters with her mother uh and seven siblings the majority of her life and so recently um three of her siblings went into foster care four of them went with uh their father but left her kind of 18 with Mom not knowing you know what the next day was going to look like and so she talks about the courage to be able to step away from mom and go into a homeless shelter on on her own and so her entering that shelter on her own at 18 qualified her for one of our programs so we do um it's a

[31:09]  program called rapid re housing it's for youth 18 to 24 we started that program in uh 2019 and so she entered this program and it has been transformative to her so she's been able to kind of step outside of what her Norms were and see what can be and so she's enrolled in a local College here called Kennesaw State and she's working on her undergrad degree and she wants to be a lawyer and she wants to be a public speaker and so if you need your next guest I have one for you because she is phenomenal but you know she has saw that there is so much more to life than what can be but it has been generational for so many of our young clients it kind of it really shocked me when I started talking to it shouldn't have but it did

[31:56]  um two things shocked me when we started this program one of them is that so many of our 18 19 20-year-olds were already parents and sometimes parents of one two three children and then the other thing that shocked me was so many of them um were telling me about their experiences in homeless shelter as children but the thing that was motivating these young women who were parents already is they didn't want their child to have the same experience they were looking for something different for their child and so this program um you know is something I really excited out because I've saw homelessness through the generations you know 67y old men struggling with mental health issues you know it doesn't go away but what if we could intervene at 18 19 20 tell a whole new story let them break those generational cycles and be

[32:48]  able to just live a whole life full of so much possibility and that's what excites me I've been I've been excited about working with um the homeless population all of my life but a lot of times it's like okay it's I don't want to say a Band-Aid but you know that this we can give you a hot plate of food and we can give you a warm place to sleep and a shower but it's not going to be transformational for you right but what could we do if we started 18 1920 can it be transformational can we end homelessness and I just I'm I'm really excited about it our Housing and Urban Development is who funds our program they they've got they started doing these youth homelessness demonstration projects we weren't part of the original we just decided hey what if we take the same money that we're using for adults

[33:34]  and apply it over here and then we applied a couple years later last year for that youth homelessness demonstration project and really excited we you know got a multi-million dollar W over a couple of years to really see what we can do and sometimes too when you're looking at homelessness you're not thinking well it's not rural Georgia it's you know it's not there it's in the urban centers it's in Atlanta but you know it's everywhere um it's amazing how many homeless youth are in our schools and how many homeless children in our schools the cost of living is just insane everywhere in our country and it's just driving this I love the word that you use the courage right of this young individual to go into a shelter by herself but also the courage to be able to rewrite her story right and that's one of the things that I think you guys are doing which is

[34:22]  so phenomenal is helping people think about a life that they can obtain by themselves that breaks that generational curse like you guys are a fundamental part of helping people understand that they can do things that maybe their parents or other people who have seen around them their entire lives couldn't even imagine like you really are a story writer and a belief breaker at the same time yeah no I could tell you story after Story um I think we have served about 247 um people since 2019 through this program so there are 247 stories there we can tell you and I hope you know that each one of them will continue to be a success you know you can't can't follow them all forever but you know that we know especially you know we also have Foster Care Homes too and so you know when our youth are aging out and you're

[35:10]  aging out without a family hopefully they know we are that family that they can come back and talk to us and join us for different things but you know that that just brings me into another thought of Community Connection right we have to build community connection for our young people especially those that that had a step away for families for one reason or another or had families who abandoned them I mean what we're talking about here is one side of the coin now one thing that I recogniz is you're going to show up with all of your energy all of your expertise your perspectives to help people break the patterns that they've been a part of but what about the other side of inspiring the next generation of great leaders and great advocates for the work that you guys are doing you know with all the competition out there like Instagram and Tik Tok and everything else that the youth seem to be kind of attracted to how are we

[35:58]  thinking about inspiring the next generation of great contributors to do the great work that you guys are doing yeah you know it's really interesting that young girl I was telling you about I think it's anate in some of them when they are pulled out of these circumstances and see it so many of them want to come and and give back because they know that there is someone right like them behind them and so I think that is a way to inspire them but you know we have our our team is Young we have a lot of um fresh out of college team m MERS and so how do you really encourage and Inspire that passion you know social work is not the highest paid job right and so there has to be other motivating factors behind that so um making sure that we have trainings available or you know seeing talent and making sure that we can you know expand

[36:46]  them maybe cross train them into other areas they might show interest in um we just had a fun time taking them all on a two-day Retreat and you know just having a good time together and showing them well this not be the highest pay job but this is the most rewarding the most fun job and so being able to see that too but I just see when they see the stories um and see what they're helping people do they get excited and they share but storytelling is so important because it is that story right I wish I could be as good as those ticktockers out there that make me scroll for an hour sometimes on accident right because I'm just I get sucked into those stories how can we use the power of social media use use you know technology to to make these stories come to life and be exciting I mean but you've been writing a story of

[37:33]  sustainability your entire life you know you've had instances and chapters where you thought you know I'm a young person my parents are doing this work I don't think I'm going to find myself in this space and then obviously your life aligned for you to have such a big impact in impacting so many lives and this is the real type of story right that I think we need to be sharing more often instead of the Tik Tok stuff and keeping us engaged but really talking about understandable impact in our communities and giving back to people who we have the opportunity to impact in our lives is hands down the most impactful type of story and I'm so proud to even just sit across this table from an amazing leader like you who's dedicated so much time to do this amazing work well thank you so much like you said at the very beginning it takes a village right and so you you know sharing our story and getting it out there in the new way is very exciting

[38:22]  and you know our board getting them inspired to do this our staff you know just people in the community who you know we wouldn't exist advocates for children would not exist if it wasn't for the whole Community coming and supporting these families in these years I want to give us a couple seconds here from your unique perspective of the leader of this organization what does the future five years look like so we can cast The Vision together to get everybody to believe on the impact that you guys are going to be able to create over these next years well so you know that Vision we're it's culminating right now a vision of organization that's they've had since about 2016 so we're putting that campus together we last year we opened our prevention and Advocacy Center that brought all of those programmingsoftware

[39:27]  these units will have um they'll have private units with private bathrooms with you know just really great spaces full of light um trauma and form design upon it so that has been our vision for all of these years and it's finally coming together we're going to celebrate that um we're going to look at how do we go deeper with some of our program lines we have a pretty um wide line of programming and so instead of maybe growing more programming how can we make our programs stronger and more impactful how can we harness technology and store up some of our systems to make things a little bit quicker and easier um and so really you know in the phase of a nonprofit you know there's a life cycle right and so we're kind of at that Peak growth of center of that life cycle and

[40:16]  so you know what do we do next I think next is kind of making sure all of this growth kind of like what I did in 2018 when I got here we can't grow unless we have that Foundation well we can't sustain and continue to grow until we make sure we catch up all everything to everything that's just happened so um we were I said in a million dollar budget we're now this year is going to be about a $7 million budget so quite a bit of growth over those few years a lot of that attributed to our youth housing programming but we want to make sure that our staff are healthy and cared for and that we are an organization that people want to work for too as well as get services from so a lot of just um being the very best that we can be being very intentional making sure that every client that enters our door is feeling

[41:03]  loved and nurtured and respected and cared for uh and just just I don't know I can't I can't sum it up I guess I'm trying to put a neat little pack you're doing a great job um you know you've grown so much personally and professionally in this journey I want to create an opportunity for you to time travel and go back to Rachel when she was is looking at this in front of her and saying okay I've got a big opportunity in front of me what advice would you give to Rachel in the beginning of this journey knowing where you're at now I would just say uh you know trust God trust your community um you can do it you know there there's sometimes you know uh when tasks seem daunting like that um you want to run from them there

[41:52]  is some someone just brought this up about you know what would you do if you could live without fear right right and so I would say don't don't be afraid right you've got this um and not only you got it but you have such an amazing community and the people of Cartersville and in your board and your staff and your teammates that this is going to be just a joyful Journey we are definitely stronger together that's for sure so Rachel one of the traditions we have here on the podcast as we close is our previous guest wanted to ask you a blind question now their question was what is one thing that people wouldn't know about you from your professional CV or your resume okay I love music um I tried to be a musician I I tried to play the

[42:41]  piano I tried to play the flute the French hor and the Cornet I can play them all but none with Excellence um so my biggest thing is that I love music and I love to try to make it but it never really happened for me well I'm glad honestly I'm I'm glad that maybe you might have struggled or failed at those things because you've been able to put all of this energy into giving back to your community and that in itself is a beautiful blessing so Rachel I just want to say thank you so much for coming on the show sharing your story the impact the motivation the Catalyst that have pushed you in the direction of taking big leaps and taking on scary challenges we're never going to truly know the impact that you're going to have over you know your leadership professional lifestyle until we can look back back one day and see all the lives

[43:28]  that you've impacted and so for everybody who's been tuning in watching and listening today thank you so much for showing up every single day and giving so much into the community we really appreciate it thank you so much and thank you for allowing to share today appreciate it absolutely guys well that's a wrap we'll catch you in the next one