SPRING 2015 ISSUE

Executive Director’s Message 2 Landscape Update 3 “Where Can I Stay for Free?” 4 Volunteer Spotlight 5 Parenting Class! 6 Volunteer & Event News 7 Wish List 8

Board Of Directors

Joe Hallett, Board Chair Karen Betenbaugh, Vice Chair Holly Pladson, Treasurer Billie Kanter, Secretary Becky Rivera Jim Fortado Kris Fortado Lawrence Sullivan Pat Macias Rich Ober Tim Vander Heiden

Shelter Staff

Brad Montgomery, Executive Director Bill Slack, Shelter Supervisor Dawn, Development Coordinator Liz, Service Coordinator Louise, Service Coordinator Melanie, Service Coordinator Krista, Shelter Coordinator Alyssa, Monitor Ashley, Monitor Gavin, Monitor Jacque, Monitor James, Monitor Lisa, Monitor Michelle, Monitor Robyn, Monitor

OK...Who had fun at the Christmas Tree Auction this year? Blisters on your

feet, strained voice, cheeks sore from smiling, and all for a great cause!

Sounds like a great way to kick off the New Year to me! I know we did

things a little differently this year, but our goal was met and EXCEEDED.

We hit our target of being able to cover 1 month of operating costs as well

as being able to purchase 20 NEW Bunk Beds and replace 3 of our broken

Bunk Beds! Thank you again for making the event such a success...see you

next year with even more surprises! Please contact me if you would like to

donate or become an event sponsor. -Dawn

We would like to give a Shelter Shout Out to

A-Main Hobbies for their continued support

during the holiday season. For the past 3 years,

A-Main Hobbies has organized a race in their

facility with an entry fee of a new toy to be

donated to the children staying at the Shelter!

A very special Thank You goes out to CUTA and the many volunteers who helped put on a very popular event for the Torres Community Shelter that for many has become a tradition. The Empty Bowls project took place in Lincoln Hall at Chico Senior High School on Thursday, February 26th. For the price of admission you can pick out a hand made ceramic bowl, then fill it with delicious soup ... created and donated by dozens of Chico's best restaurants. The bowls are created by students from several schools, local artists, and guests of the Torres Shelter. There are still many bowls left if you missed the event. For more information please email dawn@chicoshelter.org.

Torres Community Shelter 101 Silver Dollar Way

Chico, CA 95928 PH: (530) 891-9048

www.chicoshelter.org

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I went to a party last night. I rarely go to parties for a plethora of reasons, but this particular party was a birthday party for someone I’ve known since I moved to Chico in 2008 and who now lives downstairs from me (so I was going to kind of be at this party either way). I had a truly wonderful time. I met several people I’ve never met before and reconnected with several people that have a connection to the little community I’ve lived in since moving to Chico. There were plenty of laughs and plenty of good conversation over a bonfire on my front lawn.

An interesting aspect of the whole evening for me was how many people shared that they knew who I was and what I did even before we were introduced. It was part of the continuing awareness that I now live in a much smaller town than I grew up in back in Milwaukee. Many of the people I had never even met before last night ended up sharing a story regarding someone they knew that used our services or something they had heard about me personally or about the Torres Shelter. Chico truly is a tight knit community. And the stories shared with me regarding our services, growth and success helping people escape homelessness were overwhelmingly positive. There were also some questions about the rationale behind or efficacy of some of our policies, but that’s always good because it demonstrates that our community cares both about the individual people we serve and about our impact as an organization in the community as well. It’s vital that an organization like ours gets feedback on both.

At the same time, there was a considerable amount of the evening where I felt I was receiving praise that belonged to others. First, let me admit that I’ve always been bad at accepting praise and compliments. I have a tendency to shrug them off, minimize them or make a joke. Praise just makes me uncomfortable and reminds me of how much more work is needed to get done. However, most of the stories I heard last night really don’t belong to me at all. They were the result of both the individual guests’ efforts and the competence and passion of specific staff people. In all honesty, these successes have relatively little to do with me except that they are all connected.

On May 9th of this year I will have been the Executive Director of the Torres Shelter for 6 years so this will probably be my last ED message before that anniversary. For me it’s kind of an important anniversary because it will mark that I’ve been in this position longer than anyone else has and in a field where burnout and emotional fatigue are pretty prevalent it feels like I’ve done fairly well navigating the inherent stress involved. At the same time, it’s still a learning process and I continue to look for ways to improve.

A primary reason why the burden has never been too heavy is that I’ve been fortunate throughout my tenure to always have several staff people that I could rely on and still do. Our staff at the Shelter has grown considerably from 9 people when I started to 17 now and we are still growing. We have had to grow in order to meet the increasing demand for services like ours and we still need to grow more in order to reach the full potential our organization has to improve the lives both of the people we serve and the community that makes our work possible.

Despite my aversion to praise, I can feel pretty good about the work I’ve done to create a stronger infrastructure

at the Shelter; a better system where both guests and staff can focus without significant fears regarding their

personal safety or the financial stability of the organization. I can also claim some credit for being able to use my

20+ years of nonprofit work to help brainstorm and troubleshoot on individual cases. But in the end, the

thousands of people our organization has helped to escape homelessness in my almost 6 years at the Shelter have

been due mainly to the much harder work both our guests and staff have accomplished. And I think it’s important

to give credit where credit is due. ~Brad, Executive Director

Thanks For The Compliment, It Sincerely Wasn’t Me!

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Thanks to Sierra Landscape, the Shelter has 13 new trees and several shrubs in the front of the building!

Most of our readers know that the landscaping has been in a transition period since construction ended.

The weeds might have gotten as tall as the children staying here at one point! We are very thankful to Sierra

Landscape for coming out and giving our Shelter the facelift it needed. Keep checking future newsletters for

more updates on how we are transitioning to a more drought resistant landscape.

So everyone knows where Costco is.. And

the water company.. And A Main Hobbies..

But where is the Shelter!? If you haven’t

already noticed, we are missing our front

sign! After many years of abuse from the

weather, we have had to part ways with our

wooden “Torres Community Shelter” sign

out front and have been missing it ever

since. Where is the Shelter? Well we hear

ya, and we are looking for any support

we can get to assist with the funds for a

sign befitting our new landscape. If you

are interested in helping put us on the

map, please contact Dawn at

dawn@chicoshelter.org.

Much Needed Landscaping

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“WHERE CAN YOU GO AND STAY FOR SIX MONTHS FREE . . .?”

An air of determination and grit surrounds this single mother of four grown children and soon to be a grandmother of three. Juanita Dixon easily breaks into a smile and her eyes sparkle as she holds up an application form for the government Tenant Based Rental Assistance program that she just picked up from Torres Shelter. She hopes soon to realize her dream of living in her own apartment.

Juanita came from a family of seven children, but was adopted by parents in Richmond who kept her safe from drugs. By twenty-one she was the mother of a small infant and living with her father when a friend of a friend introduced her to crack cocaine. Five years later addicted and now the mother of a son and a daughter, she was living on her own in an apartment when funds ran out. Juanita then moved to a shelter in Berkeley. It was at this time that she met the father of her next two daughters and went to live with him in a drug-infested life-style in East Oakland. This lasted until her children were removed from their home.

Now, her pattern of life involved drug rehabilitation programs, getting her children back and then relapsing. By 1999 she and her family were living in Oroville, but again in an environment that made addiction easy. In 2006 Juanita got into trouble with the law because she failed to show up in court when summoned on charges of possession of drugs. The court finally gave her 90 days in prison after which she was given an ultimatum: she could either return to the house of the father of her children or return to prison to serve out her sentence. Juanita’s choice was to return to prison though this meant leaving her children without a mother. It was one of the hardest things she had to do.

Prison was a “wake-up experience.” It was a place where she came to realize that “This was not the life for me. . . It is a life with no choices.” The Walden House in Chino, a rehab program in Corona, the El Dorado House for substance abuse in Stockton and finally the Promise House in Sacramento were places that Juanita successfully completed programs that helped her stop substance abuse and prepare her through job-training classes for the working world.

Juanita was released from prison in Sacramento in 2008. She immediately found a variety of part-time jobs, from Touch of Mink demonstrating skin care products at fairs, housekeeping at a downtown Sacramento hotel, and $10.70 an hour work with In Home Support Service. Eventually Juanita had a client who lived in her apartment complex and gave her steady employment for three years. She cooked her meals, shopped, housecleaned, and attended to her personal hygiene. When her client died, Juanita not only felt the loss of a friend, but also of a steady income. Her finances took a down turn as she tried to piece a living wage from part-time work. It was in May 2014 that her daughter asked her to go on a trip to Chico. Her daughter moved on to Fresno, but Juanita decided to stay and search the job market.

All that was needed was a place to stay. This is where the Torres Shelter came to the rescue offering her six months of rent-free housing in a drug free environment as well as advice in job hunting. She “hit the ground running.” She sought employment help from the Welfare Office where she took Employment Service classes in job services and training, and she posted her resumé on Craig’s List. Despite all this effort her first temporary job in June came about when she went from vendor to vendor at the fair grounds until she was hired to sell funnel cakes. This success was followed by work at $9 an hour for In Home Support Service. But this was uneven employment with clients for whom she worked maybe three hours a day once a week to those in need of longer hours such as eight hours a day for three days a week.

By September the Torres Shelter helped her get into transitional housing at the House of Hope, a “lovely” large house where at present six women have their own room, cook for themselves, and share a large living room as well as from time to time community meals. These women are her friends and they are, like herself, members of the nondenominational Orchard Church.

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My name is Sandy Laver and I have had the wonderful opportunity to volunteer at the Torres Shelter for a little over three years. I typically volunteer on Friday evenings, and have had the pleasure of working with some exceptional staff members - who are all worth their weight in gold I might add! They provide a very necessary service to the Chico community, and do so with the utmost degree of compassion, caring, dedication and respect to each and every guest they assist. The guests are obviously at a very low point in their life, but they are taking a very important step to try to get things turned around for the better. I am hopeful that this environment will encourage and support the life changes necessary to assist them in getting back on their feet again.

I had some free time when my youngest son left the area for college, so I decided that I would spend some of that time volunteering at one of the local homeless shelters. Through college, and over the years, I had often heard the phrase that most people are really only one or two paychecks away from homelessness - I believe there is a whole lot of truth to that statement. I was not so sure that I could handle working in a shelter. My biggest fear was that I would say the wrong thing and cause someone additional pain or sadness, since I did not have a background in social work or social services. But I have found that by just being myself, and treating others the way I would like to be treated, that my fears and worries were unwarranted. I smile and laugh often, which most of the guests find refreshing and uplifting.

Volunteer Spotlight: Sandy

The final piece of good fortune for Juanita came in December, using a computer in her search for jobs, she was directed to apply for work in housekeeping at Enloe Hospital – a job with regular hours and benefits. When she was paroled in 2009, her felony charges were reduced to a misdemeanor because of the progress she had made in rehabilitation. It was then that she vowed she would never return to the drug environment that was her home for so many years and when she arrived in Chico she knew it was time to seek help from the Torres Shelter.

Juanita is close to her children and siblings and is in contact with them through the Internet, but she looks forward to a time when she can visit them as well as her eighty-three year-old, biological mother who lives in Chicago. (Her adopted parents are deceased.) Her gratitude to the Torres Shelter easily flows out of her: “Where can you go and stay for six months free and get yourself together? – That’s half a year!”

Interview By: Judy Collins-Hamer & Maryanne Bertram

“I have met many, many wonderful people, and I have also

learned to really appreciate some of the simple things that I

had come to take for granted.”

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I typically assist the guests when they check-in for the evening. This may include pulling a small box that is assigned to them where they can store their personal items, distribute mail and messages, providing shower items, bedding, assist with laundry (there's a whole lot of laundry I might add!), providing personal hygiene items, and the typical "other duties as assigned". It's also a time where I get to provide one of my favorite and never ending services - I GET TO TALK TO EVERYONE! I really enjoy interacting and conversing with all the guests. I have heard many great stories, the best jokes, exciting life changing news, along with some very personal heartbreaking news and stories. Everyone needs someone to listen to them and make them feel comfortable and safe. It's certainly not my place to judge - just listen and offer support if needed. I feel honored that many of the guests feel so comfortable talking to me, and I do appreciate each and every one of them and all the stories, events and just small talk that is shared.

I would not feel right if I did not mention that our community is amazing! From the generous donors to the fantastic people who make and serve dinner to the guests. But there is also a group from the young and upcoming professional people that deserve some kudos as well. I have met and worked with many fine students from CSU Chico. I'm not sure if I was just the luckiest person in the world or what, but each and every one of them were exceptional people who assisted the guests in a sincere and respectful manner - they were all extremely hard workers, and I feel blessed to have been partnered with such great student volunteers and all around amazing young people - their parents, teachers and the community should all be very proud!

I would also like to take this opportunity to offer a very sincere heartfelt thank you to all the generous donors and volunteers! It really would not be possible without you. You are making a very significant contribution in providing assistance and services to those who are going through a very difficult time. I honestly cannot tell you how much the guests appreciate everything. And it truly is the simple things, such as a new pair of socks, deodorant, earplugs, shower shoes (aka flip flops) - so, THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

I am not sure if I have made a positive difference in anyone's life, but I know some have made a very positive difference in mine. It is my continued prayer that all the guests receive the care and guidance they need to continue safely on their life's journey. ~ Sandy

P– Praise

R– Reflect

I– Imitate

D– Describe

E– Enthusiasm

Many thanks to the Child Abuse Prevention Council and Butte

County First Five Butte Commission for sponsoring a grant to offer

“Be a Nurturing Parent with P.R.I.D.E” classes and volunteers for on-site

Child Care during the classes!

Taught by Barbara Burns, MS, these classes have been held at the

Shelter every week since January for the parents staying at the Shelter.

The responses from the parents have been overwhelmingly positive and

the lesson plans have shown to be very beneficial for the parents

and their children.

Parenting Class

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We were able to meet our goal of purchasing new

bunk beds for the Women’s Dorm, thanks to all of the

generous donations from the community and

Holbrook’s Clearance Center. Our next goal is the

Men’s Dorm! We need 70 new bunks. For as little as

$350, you can provide a peaceful night’s rest for two of

our guests by purchasing a twin set bunk bed with 2

mattresses and a ladder. For more information about

the beds, please contact dawn@chicoshelter.org.

Thank you to the 7th Day Adventist Church for the donation of socks. This time of year socks are a big

request from our guests.

Volunteer and Event News

Shelter Shout Out to Makenzie!

This young lady (pictured here with her mother, Kasey and

younger brother, Caleb) stopped by to drop off her

Christmas money and a box of donations to the Shelter.

Makenzie was happy to have her picture taken to

encourage other young community members to give back.

Proud to be partnering up with local non-profit From The

Ground Up Farms. FTGUF has been donating fresh, or-

ganic, local produce to the Shelter every other week!

The produce goes towards the nightly meals provided

to our guests. FTGUF has also generously donated some

daily use items that are greatly appreciated and highly

needed by our guests! For more information on FTGUF,

please visit: www.fromthegroundupfarms.org

Zzzzzzzz….

Support From a Local Farm

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GREETINGS FROM THE TORRES COMMUNITY SHELTER

Chico Community Shelter Partnership

101 Silver Dollar Way

Chico, CA 95928

Non-Profit Organization

U.S. Postage

PAID

Chico CA

Permit No. 1718

Don’t forget to swipe your

S.H.A.R.E.S card when you visit a

participating store!

Don’t have one? Not a problem,

call Jacque at 891-9048 to get your

S.H.A.R.E.S card today!

We can even mail one to you!

Help can come in all shapes and sizes!

We strive to provide our guests’ with daily hygiene and basic

need items free of charge! Every penny saved for them is

a step closer to housing!

The Shelter is always in need of the following items:

-Shampoo

-Body Wash

-Deodorant

-Razors and Shaving Cream

-Earplugs

-Towels/Twin Size Blankets

-Coffee/Sugar/Creamer

-Ibuprofen/Tums