Community Highlight: Green Gables Haven
Podcast Transcription
Money Talk is a podcast brought to you by PFCU where we will share tips and tricks and talk to the experts on all things finance related. Join us as we cover everything from credit and loans to cyber security and careers. No matter where you are in life, PFCU is here for you.
Maddy: Hello everyone, thank you for joining me for another episode of PFCU’s Money Talk podcast. I visited Green Gables Haven for this episode and it is a domestic violence program serving those in Barry County. Janie Bergeron, the Executive Director and Christy Durham, the Legal Advocate and Administrative Assistant were kind enough to sit down with me and talk about everything that Green Gables Haven does for domestic violence victims in Barry County. It’s pretty amazing and I hope you enjoy learning more. Make sure to check out their website at greengableshaven.org. Alright, here they are!
Christy: My name is Christy Durham and I am the legal advocate here at Green Gables Haven. We're a pretty small organization so a lot of us wear a lot of hats. I also currently am the administrative assistant and the bookkeeper.
Maddy: Oh, so you wear many hats.
Christy: I do.
Maddy: Okay.
Christy: I always say though, at the end of the day, I'm an advocate though. Yes. You know, that pretty much sums it up. Green Gables Haven is the domestic violence program that serves individuals in Barry County. So, we have a shelter program, which I think is primarily what most people think when they think of a domestic violence program, which is completely accurate, but we also have a large non-resident program for individuals who maybe already have a safe place to stay or they haven't made the choice to leave their abusive relationship yet. But in either capacity, individuals are eligible for legal advocacy, social support advocacy. We do a lot of partnering with local organizations to help our clients find employment or if they're underemployed, help them become gainfully employed. Housing resources, you know, food bank type stuff, any of that kind of stuff that can, especially things that are free in the community to help them fill the gaps, to kind of save up the money for a lot of the services that, you know, agencies won't pay for it, so.
Maddy: Right. So, you provide those connections.
Christy: Absolutely. Yep. We're great. Our case manager is a great referral point to get the clients hooked up with all the support that they need while they're going through their situation.
Maddy:
Janie: My name is Janie Bergeron. I have been the director here at Green Gables since 2007. So, I've been here 16 years. It's been a lot of fun just watching all the turnover and watching people come through our program and become successful people. And then even the people that work on our team, it's kind of fun to watch them grow. We do a lot of some college internships so they're able to get a little feel for what it might be like to be in the social work world before they really figure out that maybe they wanna do something different. Or, you know, we've got some ladies that just have been here forever and is their primary job but we also have people that do different jobs as well.
Maddy: And you mentioned that it was a smaller organization. How many staff do you have? Do you have a large staff? Not really?
Janie: About 10.
Maddy: Oh, okay.
Janie: Total.
Christy: And we're losing two because they're college interns. So, we're in pursuit of those fall interns currently.
Maddy: Yeah, oh that's good to know. How can, this is going off what I wanted to talk about but that's great, how can someone apply for that if you, do you post those openings for those internships?
Christy: We do. We've kind of gotten away from the Indeed and that kind of stuff because it is just so expensive. But if you look at our Green Gables Haven Facebook page, we periodically repost what the job description is and then it's just really simple. Email a resume to Christy at greengableshaven.org.
Maddy: Perfect. Hopefully you find some people.
Christy: It's tough losing the two that we have right now. They're on to bigger and better things and they've been amazing staff for us. So, there's some big shoes to fill.
Maddy: Yeah.
Janie: For sure, they're good girls.
Maddy: That's good that they've been good staff.
Christy: They have.
Maddy: Good. Could you talk a little bit, you've talked about all the resources that you provide and those connections you provide. Could you talk about how someone, if they need any of your resources, how they can go about connecting with you and what those steps might look like?
Christy: Sure. Barry County is our service area so, we do often field a lot of phone calls from people outside of the community, get them pointed in the right direction. But individuals who contact our program or in need of services, they can reach out in a variety of ways, whether that's through email, that contact information is on our website. But generally, we have a crisis line that we encourage folks to call when they're looking for services and they will be assessed by an advocate at that point to kind of determine what the individual is looking for and what they may be eligible for as far as the services that we provide. So, that is the first step. If they're looking for shelter, go through an assessment process, determine if they're eligible, explain the program to them, and then go from there. Anybody who's looking for non-residential services, kind of the same steps, not so many initial questions but set them up with an appointment with our case manager. And they'll have about an hour intake, kind of explore all the ways that we can assist and go from there.
Maddy: I would love to hear more about your history when Green Gables Haven got started, how long ago that was.
Janie: Okay, I can answer that. Ironically, I worked for the attorney that worked on getting it to become a nonprofit. So, it's so funny I came like full circle because I came back to, I typed all the paperwork, went to the state of Michigan when I worked for her. And then all these years later I got hired in. So, it was about 1998, Judge Shaw, he was the probate family judge at the time here in Barry County, was just seeing a huge need for domestic violence services. And unfortunately, the only place to go was the safe place of Battle Creek. Wonderful place. Nobody really wants to leave their little teeny town to go live in Battle Creek. Furthermore, you're asking families, you’re asking moms to pull their children out of school. School is oftentimes where they feel the most safe. So, he went to the Barry Community Resource Network and they formed a work group and after several years, it took some time, but we were able to open our doors on April 1st of 2004. It was a process that continues to be a process. There's a domestic violence treatment board within the state of Michigan that really wasn't excited and didn't think Barry County needed a shelter. We've had some challenges with funding over the years but we always joke around that Barry County takes care of its own so sure enough every time we have a need somebody in our community steps up and helps us so it's really great. So yeah, we've been open now since 2004 we've served 2,400 people.
Maddy: Wow.
Janie: That includes children.
Maddy: Awesome, yeah.
Janie: I'm not sure what else. It's kind of it for, I mean.
Maddy: No, that's good.
Janie: The house was donated and we had volunteer people come in and fix it up. And then later years, we were offered the opportunity to have this office so that we had a place, because I was just by myself in an office within a different organization.
Maddy: Oh, okay. Yep.
Janie: And then 12, 13 years ago now, maybe longer, we had the opportunity, this house was donated to us as well. So that we can have an office too, which was nice.
Maddy: Wow, that’s amazing.
Janie: Yeah.
Maddy: So, you're coming up on 20 years?
Janie: We are. Yeah, we are. I know. It's so crazy.
Maddy: That's so cool.
Janie: Yeah.
Maddy: So, you talked about funding. Can people donate?
Janie: Oh, yes.
Maddy: If they would like?
Janie: Yes, we love that.
Maddy: How can people do that?
Janie: Again, we keep referring to our website, but I think that's the way the world is now. But yeah, so on our website, there's a direct donate link, and we go through Network for Good. Or I guess they can probably do a search even on Network for Good and try to find us. But that's really the easiest. Otherwise, we do have some good old-fashioned paper stuff here. We have some brochures and some booklets because we are running an endowment campaign right now. So, we're trying to raise three million dollars in three years. We need 12 to be totally self-sustaining but we're also realistic and we know it carries 12 million dollars in three years. So, our goal is three million dollars in three years and then our tagline is providing hope forever. So yeah, so yeah people can donate. We have fundraisers periodically throughout the year but we get random checks sometimes too. There's a couple of families that just suddenly there's a check, suddenly there's a check.
Maddy: Yeah that's amazing.
Janie: People are very very very generous.
Maddy: Yeah.
Janie: Green Gables would not be here without the great people of Barry County.
Maddy: Yeah, community coming together.
Janie: Yeah, for sure.
Maddy: You talked about fundraisers. Do you have any coming up that you would like to share about? Any events, anything?
Janie: Our next fundraiser isn't until February, but it's our largest one and it's our annual auction. I think this will be our 21st or 22nd year. It does very, very well. It's a lot of fun. It's well attended. And that is always the second Saturday in February. So, there will be more details coming out. We were actually having a meeting in a couple of weeks to get that going because it's a long fundraiser. We have to collect all these donations for the auction and all that stuff. So, but that's our next one. And then probably in the fall, we were doing it in the spring, but we do another one called Nibbles, Novelist and New Beginnings, and that's where we get four different authors to come in and kind of talk about their book or their journey and how they became writers or whatever they want to talk about really. Some of them will do readings from their books. We let them do whatever they want. And then Terry DeBoer, our local news lady here from News 8, she always comes and she emcees it for us and she's just, she's a hoot. She is just a hoot. So, it's a nice dinner and a chance to hear from these authors and in a quick fundraiser. I mean, people arrive about five and everybody's pretty much gone by eight. So, it's really, but it's a really neat, neat thing.
Maddy: That is cool.
Janie: Yeah. Yeah.
Christy: It's a fun lighthearted fundraiser versus the auction where you're, it's so busy and so there's lots of pressure to spend money.
Janie: Lots of pressure.
Maddy: No, I like that. I've never heard that as a fundraiser, that's super unique that you have authors come in and do that.
Janie: It's really cool. I've been doing it six or seven years. So yeah, prior to that, I did, I was doing these and I say, ‘I’ just because when I started, I started the idea. We did a power of one luncheon. So very, we'd have like a like, Kiyomi Rarafco Wilson. She was Miss Michigan, but she was Miss USA in 1988. So, she was our first speaker and she was really cool. We did that over lunch and that was kind of hard to get people, you know, to leave their offices or maybe the people that don't work in an office that really want to participate in something like this. So, I think five or six years ago, I've lost track with COVID but we've started making it a dinner. We’ve seen a little more success with it. It just allows more opportunity for people to come.
Maddy: You guys are doing big things. You're very busy.
Janie: Yeah, we're busy all the time.
Maddy: Yeah. Is there anything else you would like to share?
Christy: Again, our website is very detailed about, a lot of people wanna donate physical items. So, our website is really detailed about that. It also has a Amazon wish list link that will always feature our most urgently needed items for the shelter.
Maddy: Perfect.
Janie: One thing we don't take care is we do not take clothing. People always want to give it and it's wonderful but we don't have the storage space for it.
Maddy: Okay.
Janie: So, we refer and there's so many great clothing pantries around here that we just send them there and it's a lot easier. So, we like to make that clear. And no baby stuff.
Maddy: No clothing and no baby stuff. Okay.
Janie: No that's more of a safety thing.
Maddy: Right yeah, a lot of that-
Christy: There's so many resources and we have such limited space that our staff, I mean, they could be processing clothing from sunup to sundown if we took clothing donations, but there's so many other agencies out there that provide those supports that we don't have to recreate that.
Janie: Yeah, there's no reason to.
Maddy: Right.
Janie: And it's all local.
Maddy: Right, you just connect people to get what they need.
Christy: Absolutely.
Janie: Yep.
Maddy: Good. Well, that was really all the questions I had for you guys.
Christy: Great!
Maddy: That was such good information.
Janie: Well, I thought I will give you some of our brochures too, just so you have.
Maddy: Oh, of course, yes. Thank you. I love learning about these organizations that do so many good things for the community and people that need it.
Janie: Well, we're really excited. This is all of our, we just rebranded everything.
Christy: Yes.
Janie: With the endowment. We decided we updated our logo and it's bright and pretty.
Maddy: Yeah.
Christy: The website's all updated.
Maddy: I love that. All right. Well, thank you so much for your time.
Christy: Thank you.
Janie: This was fun.
Money Talk is a podcast brought to you by PFCU. PFCU offers many products and services to fit your needs, from our various loan and account options to our team of financial coaches to help you reach your goals. Make sure to take advantage of the many conveniences PFCU offers such as the mobile app, mobile wallets, bill pay and more. Visit our website at PFCU the number four me dot com to learn more. PFCU is an equal housing lender and is federally insured by the NCUA.