All Things Owensboro
Welcome to All Things Owensboro!
Owensboro, KY—a town of 60,000 (or 100,000 if we count the whole county… and why not?)—is packed with extraordinary stories hidden in plain sight.
From BBQ that’ll change your life to Bluegrass that shaped a genre, from Friday Night Lights glory to Ohio River adventures, this town has a little bit of everything.
Join host Brad Winter (a professional of nothing, but a fan of great conversation) as we uncover the stories that make Owensboro anything but ordinary.
Local legends. Hidden gems. Community connections.
Hit play and let’s dive into All Things Owensboro!
All Things Owensboro
A Fresh Start with Cindy Jean – Changing Lives One Step at a Time
Ever wonder what happens when a personal rock bottom becomes the foundation for lifting others up? Cindy Jean's powerful journey from addiction to founding Fresh Start for Women reveals exactly that transformation.
This conversation dives deep into how one woman's "long shot from God" evolved into a sanctuary for women facing life's toughest challenges in Owensboro, Kentucky. Unlike traditional recovery programs, Fresh Start combines accountability with compassionate support, requiring residents to work and pay rent while providing the structure needed to rebuild shattered lives.
"We like to give women a hand up and not a handout," Cindy explains, describing how the 12-unit apartment complex and three houses create a community where women support each other through recovery, financial rebuilding, and parenting challenges. The results speak volumes - former residents have repaired credit scores, purchased Habitat for Humanity homes, regained custody of children, and even launched careers helping others through similar journeys.
What makes this story particularly compelling is how Cindy's own background informed her approach. Having navigated addiction, relationship dysfunction, and homelessness herself, she brings authentic understanding to each woman's struggle. This isn't just housing - it's a comprehensive life reset built on practical goals, peer accountability, and faith-based encouragement.
Whether you're curious about effective recovery models, inspired by stories of second chances, or simply love seeing how Owensboro's community spirit supports its vulnerable members, this episode delivers heart and substance in equal measure. Ready to be part of the solution? Cindy shares multiple ways to get involved with this transformative work happening right in our community.
To get involved with Fresh Start for Women, visit freshstartforwomenowensboro.org, their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/freshstartforwomen), call 270-240-3180, or email freshstartcj67@yahoo.com.
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It's been a great episode and I hope you share this with all your Owensboro friends! Thanks for the support and again, if you have questions or guests ideas, send a text!
What's up everyone and welcome to All Things Owensboro Podcast, where an ordinary town meets extraordinary stories. I'm your host, brad Winter, a professional of absolutely nothing but an enthusiast of good conversation, great stories and community ministry at First Baptist Church Owensboro. Today's episode is a good one. We are here to shine a light on people, places and stories that make our community special, and today we're honored to sit down with someone who's changing lives one woman at a time Cindy Jean. Cindy Jean is the founder of Fresh Start for Women, and what began as a calling has turned into a safe haven for women facing some of life's toughest challenges, from addiction recovery to rebuilding after trauma.
Speaker 1:Fresh Start offers more than housing. It offers hope, purpose and a future. Get ready for an honest and powerful conversation about faith, resilience and second chances right here in Owensboro. And hey, this podcast is provided and would not be possible without First Baptist Church. So if you're looking for a church family and you're looking for a home, come check out First Baptist Church on all social medias. At FBCOWB, we'd love to have you on Sunday mornings at 1030. I would love to see your bright and shining face, so come check us out.
Speaker 1:All right, Enough chit chat, let's dive in. So come, check us out. All right, enough chit-chat, and let's dive in Owensboro. Hey guys, welcome to All Things Owensboro. I'm your host, brad Winter. I'm the Minister of Community Engagement and Activities over at First Baptist Church Owensboro. I am a transplant, but I do love listening to stories from other people and I love the town of Owensboro, and so today I have a special guest with me. She's been of Owensboro, and so today I have a special guest with me. She's been in Owensboro most of her life and she has a great story. Ms Cindy Jean from Fresh Start for Women, thank you for joining us today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm excited to be with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, Ms Cindy, I like to start off with a random icebreaker question. They're always fun because you get to hear stories that you otherwise wouldn't know of, and that is what has been your longest shot that you've ever taken and what came about through that.
Speaker 2:Well, that kind of is a good question, especially with what we're getting ready to speak about. I guess I would say that my biggest long shot that I've ever taken is Fresh Start for Women. It came to me as a vision from God after I've been praying about it for a while. And yeah, here we are. That started in 2015, and we started moving women in the end of 2016, and here we are in 2025. So I guess when my long shot comes from God, then of course it's going to work out. If it comes from me, not so much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think we probably all have stories related to that in some way somehow the long shot that we've tried to take or maybe we've always dreamed of and haven't taken it it's really scary. So I just commend you for taking that step of faith and really putting you know one foot in front of the other and making it happen, because now it's a reality. Yeah, thanks, yeah, no problem, miss Cindy. And so we're going to learn about Fresh Start for Women. We're excited about hearing about that nonprofit. You guys are our first nonprofit, so congratulations on that. Thank you, you're welcome. But before we get into the nonprofit side of things, who is Miss Cindy Jean?
Speaker 2:Well, I guess I would say after coming from a life of dysfunction and bad choices and a dysfunctional childhood. I grew up without a father and my mother had a severe mental illness, and so I grew up making bad choices as a child and into teen years and into my 20s and 30s and making bad choices and bad relationships and having kids out of wedlock and struggling with addiction. And in 2008, when I was, I think, 41, I got saved and everything changed after that. Before that, I had tried to live my life right by my own power, but in 2008, I surrendered to the Lord and everything just started falling into place after that. And so, you know, after getting my own life together and having my own struggles with you know homelessness and addiction, and you know just building credit and learning to live life on life's terms, I began in 2010. I started working at Friends of Sinners, which is a local Christian-based rehab here in Owensboro. They were opening a house for women and I applied for that and I had done sales my whole life before that, and so when I went to work at Friends of Sinners, I was there for like five years. The first five years the women's house was opened and and I just really loved giving back to women.
Speaker 2:And in 2015, when I left there, I feel like God was calling me out. Wasn't really sure what that was going to look like. I took a secular job, but I knew my season was up. I wasn't really sure what that was going to look like. I took a secular job, but I knew my season was up. And, yeah, I went to work for a secular job and I missed being with women every day. But having been through that struggle myself and watching the recidivism as I was doing ministry for all those years and then doing the jail ministry, I would just see the same faces back over and over again. And so it just began to burden me and I fasted and I prayed and I cried out to God and I just asked the Lord to like use my life as an example for other women so that they know they didn't have to live that way anymore, that they could, you know, choose Christ and then all things would fall into place. And so the Lord kind of took me up on that offer. You know, decided this kind of been living my life for the Lord ever since I got married in 2015 to my husband, shane, and we've been married. This will be 11 years this year and before that I was single by myself, serving women and serving the Lord, and there's a lot of hard things about being single and having come from brokenness, and so I feel like I had a lot of good things to offer and had a lot of thoughts and good ideas, but not really knowing how that was all going to come to fruition. We'll talk about Fresh Start in a minute, but that's kind of part of who Cindy Jean is right now at this point in life, because I've been here doing this since 2016.
Speaker 2:And when I was working at my secular job, I had some accounts that I had to visit in Bowling Green and I was on the parkway driving back to Owensboro and I feel like I got a download from the Lord. Whether that fits with your theology or not, that's where it came from and so I was just driving and I felt like the Lord started speaking to me after lots of fasting and praying for years, and I pulled over on the side of the road and wrote down all of these things that I felt like the Lord was telling me. And then I called you know, the other co-founders, carol Adkins and Frances Briner and asked them if they would meet me at my office, at my work on Saturday, and I just presented it to them, and you know, this is what I've been doing ever since Now. I worked, I worked my job and my career for seven years and did Fresh Start up until about two years ago, and then I became a full-time paid staff, and so I guess we'll talk about that as well.
Speaker 1:So you're doing this solo right now, ms Cindy, and that is okay, because the dream and the hope is in the future is to bring on more full-time staff that can help you fill in things. I know you have some great volunteers, you have a great board, and so, as we're talking about Fresh Start for Women, go into what is your identity, what is your goal, what is your mission and vision here at Fresh Start for Women. Give us a story or two that would be great to hear and a success story. And then also, too I know this is a lot, but that last one I really like to be how do we as a community in Owensboro get involved with you guys here at Fresh Start for Women?
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, that's a lot to unpack. So let me start here with who are we and what do we do? So we take women from lots of different places in Owensboro, take women from lots of different places in Owensboro. A lot of nonprofits specialize in a certain thing and we kind of are the nonprofit that just tries to help the other nonprofits. So you know, we take women from Sandy's House, which is the Lighthouse for Women. We take women from Crossroads, the Patino Shelter, st Benedict's, friends of Sinners, the Yellow Banks Recovery it's called ARC, so I never know what to call it but Hope House. There's just lots of places that will refer people to us.
Speaker 2:Matter of fact, I interviewed a lady this morning that came from one of the schools, reached out to me about her and her son, and so what we do is we love to take women who are in desperate situations and give them hope and a place to live and then time for God to kind of work in their life. And so our ladies, you know, we'd like them to stay for a year or two to be able to really change the behaviors and the life patterns that they've learned and the life patterns that they've learned. But what we do really is. We house women that are coming from critical situations and they have to have a job. They do pay rent. So that's what's kind of different about Fresh Start than a lot of places. We like to give women a hand up and not a handout. They work, they pay rent. Their rent is discounted based upon the activities that they do. So you know, if they go to their three meetings a week and they meet with me once a month and they go to their community meetings, then they can get their own place to rent and it's at a discounted price. If, for some reason, they don't do the things that they were supposed to do, there's an upcharge. So that kind of keeps them on the right track of wanting to do the right thing.
Speaker 2:And we usually interview pretty thoroughly in the beginning. So when people come in, we kind of know what we want from them and they kind of know what we expect, and they set their own goals. They tell us this is my goals for the future, and then we are just like a light accountability that helps them achieve those goals. So, for example, if someone's goal was to get out of debt and raise their credit score, and I see them going out to eat and have food delivered, then I'm going to lightly knock, knock, knock on their door and ask them to meet with me and kind of say, hey, I noticed this, this is what you said you were going to do and you know, could you help me understand how you feel like you're going to get to your goal by doing these behaviors, because this is what we talked about that you were going to do. And then they usually reel it in pretty quickly and they look back at themselves and they're like, oh, my goodness, you're right, didn't even realize I was doing that.
Speaker 2:Number one to give women a safe place to live. And there's no men that live here, it's just women and children, and we have a 12-unit apartment complex and three houses. So these women all kind of support and help each other. They know the rules. Some of them have been here longer than others, so they kind of help enforce the rules and remind their sisters hey, this is what you're doing and that's old behavior.
Speaker 2:And it comes together really well when it comes from another person instead of just an authority figure all the time, because sometimes we can tend to be, you know, resistant to authority figures when we've lived in the life of rebellion, and so their goal while being here is number one learn how to live on their own and pay their own bills.
Speaker 2:Number two improve their life, their job, their career, their education, their spiritual life, their physical health. All of those things are things that we help them address. We don't. For example, if somebody comes in and they weigh 300 pounds, I'm not going to say to them you need to look at your health. If that's not an area she chooses to address, then that's not my concern. If she says you know I've struggled with relationships and I'm always falling back on men, then you know I'm going to help hold her accountable in that area. If she says I would like to further my education, then whether that starts with her completing her GED or taking some college classes or graduating from college We've had all of those situations- Looking for a place to get active, connect with others and have fun as a family?
Speaker 1:Then come check out the Rec at FBC Owensboro. From open gym and a weight room to upward sports and community events, there's something for everyone. Memberships are super affordable Just $2 a day, $10 a month or $60 a year and get this families. You only pay $120 max for the entire family for the whole year, and if you're a senior college student or one of our city heroes, like a teacher, first responder or health care worker, you get a discount too. The rec is more than a gym. It's a place to belong.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, it sounds like you're a mama to all these ladies and to or even a grandmama, some of these children as well, and that's awesome, because we all need people like that in our lives. It looks like that's like the first thing that you're kind of looking at is how can I help you? Like I'm here for you. I'm not here for anything else, I'm here for you. And so, yeah, I know you shared before with me a couple of success stories, but if you have like one or two that you can share with those who are listening on just ladies who come in, families that have come in and just, you've just seen God work, an awesome, you know movement in their lives. It could even be, you know, maybe they weren't a believer, but they came in and they got their stuff together. Now they're successful women.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I will say this before I get into the success stories is that I am the only one that's paid here, but our board members are all really active supporting factors in the daily operations as well, like they help with everything from, you know, paying bills to helping kind of walk with and mentor the girls. And so I guess one of my success stories I'll talk about is a girl that one of our board members is kind of like a life mentor for, and so this young lady came to us. She didn't, her mother had passed away, she was estranged from her father and stepmother, who live out of state, and she had lost a couple of children previously and she had just given birth. And she was in a local rehabilitation center where I knew some ladies that had been at Fresh Start and they worked there, and so they reached out to me and said, hey, cindy, can you talk to this lady? She doesn't have a job yet and she's only been sober for 30 days and that's typically we like people to be sober longer than that. You know we prefer like six months and been on the job for three to six months. But so I went ahead and told them that I would talk to her, but I hadn't met her yet.
Speaker 2:And so I ended up going to a Friday night revival service here in town and that particular girl happened to show up. You know, those are the little God things that happen. She happened to show up and somebody introduced me to her and I met her and the lady there that was that was teaching as a friend of mine, brandi Harris, with the Kentucky Revival Hub, and she said this is Kiki and she needs to go to Fresh Start. And I'm like, of course she does. Everybody brings people up to me and says, hey, they need to be at Fresh Start, but we don't usually have a lot of openings. And so I was like, yeah, yeah, ok, let me talk to her. And I was kind of, you know, in the back of my mind, having doubts or rolling my eyes, like, yeah, everybody needs to be at Fresh Start, I'm trying to go to the revival, you know, and so. But when I met her, the Lord automatically, just instantly, put it on my heart that she belonged with us here and I felt the Lord speak to me about it, and so we brought her in.
Speaker 2:She got a job at River Valley as soon as she was released from the River Valley Treatment Center and she's been there ever since and she's been here for, I think, a year and a half now, and so she not only is raising her child, but she had given a child up for adoption, which was an open adoption and she has a relationship with that child as well was an open adoption and she has a relationship with that child as well and another child that she had previously. She is paying money to him and visiting him as much as she's able and she has really, really progressed and been promoted at her job. She has gotten her credit fixed. Her credit score is high. She has money saved. She's in the Habitat for Humanity program. She has money saved. She's in the Habitat for Humanity program. She's improved her education. I mean, she has just really grown leaps and bounds and within the next year she'll be owning lot of our women. We have several in their program and we have a lady that was our first, our very first resident here is a Habitat for Humanity owner and I was going to share her story in a minute.
Speaker 2:But, going back to talking about Kiki, the first girl that I was talking about is she's. Now we have three women that live on site out of 15 that are leaders here and they kind of help when I'm not on site to kind of watch over things. They help with drug tests, they help me with interviews, and so Kiki's a leader and she's one of the best moms I know. So I'm just really proud of her. And so the other story I was going to tell was, I'll just say, stacey, because she's given me permission to share her story anytime.
Speaker 2:But she was one of our very first residents and I met her at Celebrate Recovery at Owensboro Christian back in 2010 or 11. And she approached me and she was like, yeah, this is my first time here, but I'm going to be a leader. And that's funny If you know the situation, you know people. She's living in a homeless shelter. I've never met her before and she's going to be in leadership. And so again, my natural mind kind of was like yeah, okay, you know, but she really knew what she was talking about, because that girl has grown leaps and bounds and, um, she left the Patino shelter, came to Fresh Start when we started it. Um, got a job, did really well. She's gone back to school, got custody of her son back. She is working for a homeless shelter. Well, had been working for one of the homeless shelters, she's now at Puzzle Pieces working for them, but every job she's had has been giving back in the community. She has a desire to have her own nonprofit one day and I have no doubt that she will, because she's amazing and she owns her own home through Habitat as well and has just done really well. She's also a a member of the Impact 100 Women here in Owensboro, which is an awesome organization that has helped us a lot, and she's on the board of directors at Habitat for Humanity.
Speaker 2:So you know, we like to see women who not only become better and grow, but they become part of the change. And then each one teach one. You know you've heard that that analogy before then each one teach one. You know you've heard that that analogy before, and so we love it when women begin to help other women and it just kind of explodes, and we've seen that a lot. We have probably 14 or 15 women that have come through Fresh Start since we started that are working in different treatment centers. We have three or four women that are working at River Valley helping the kid, the disturbed youth, and that is a very difficult job but a lot of our ladies they relate to that because when they were young they were those children and so they have a passion for that and that particular job takes a real passion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it's really cool. You know I'm listening to you talk and I know a little bit of stuff. I haven't heard Stacey's before, but have heard of kiki. I met her, she's great. Let's just shout out to kiki if she's listening, uh.
Speaker 1:But you know, you talked about how you're not just trying to make these individuals better, uh, members of society, necessarily although that's that's a nice little goal but you're really worried about the personal, like the soul of the person is what you're worried about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which is really cool to hear, because I think a lot of times people see, um, non-profits like yours and they think, oh, you're just trying to make better people with society, uh, but in reality there's a relationship there, uh, there's, there's more than just you know.
Speaker 1:I was really cool to hear that stacy is now on the board of directors at multiple places and she's at puzzle pieces and I'm sure when she starts her nonprofit she's going to come to you and ask you for advice, because you started yours and it's it's rolling and it looks successful, and so it's really, really cool that you guys look past just the part of making that person a quote unquote better person, if that makes sense, and so that's, that's really cool to hear. And so, miss Cindy Jean, you know they just heard about Fresh Start for Women. They just heard really two really cool success stories. If there is somebody in the community who's like, hey, this sounds really cool, I like to get involved and invest in these women as well, or these families, or even just invest in you, miss Cindy, how do they get involved with getting involved with Fresh Start for Women?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they can reach out First of all with Fresh Start for Women. Yeah, they can reach out. First of all, I would invite anybody to check out our website it's freshstartforwomenowensboroorg, or check out our Facebook page, fresh Start for Women, owensboro. Or they can call me at the office here, it's 270-240-3180, and ask for me. Or, if they like, they can email me directly with questions or just the desire. What I usually do when someone wants to get involved is I sit down and I meet with them one on one. I give them a tour, introduce them to what we're doing and just see how they feel like the Lord is calling them to be a part of Fresh Start, instead of me just telling them what they need to do.
Speaker 2:We do have specific, you know, volunteer days where we have lots of people in the community come together. That's also a way people can help. Financially is a huge thing. Of course, we don't get grants from the government. We just rely on our local generosity, our churches, individuals. We do some fundraisers and the women do pay rent. So that helps on a small part of keeping us going. But you know it. Just it costs money.
Speaker 1:So they can email me directly at freshstartcj67 at yahoocom all right, miss sydney, and I know you mentioned a lot about uh church, which, again, I'm a minister at church, so church faith that's really big, that's really important to me, jesus. But what if someone's listening to this and they're not a believer, they're not someone who is really into religion in a sense, but they wanted to get involved with Fresh Start Women. Is there opportunities for them to get involved as well?
Speaker 2:Of course, yeah. So we don't force our faith on anyone. When the women come here, we give them an opportunity to know why we started and why we're here, and let them know and invite them. I share my testimony with them, I share the gospel, but I don't force anything on them. They're not required to go to church. I don't think that's helpful for anybody. But if somebody has a passion, say for children or women, they can get involved in many different ways. We've got a lot of kids that live here. I think we have like 21 kids currently and 15 women that live on site and there's several different needs that we have. So I would just encourage anybody to reach out if they had a heart for single moms or children that are being raised in dysfunctional situations to reach out.
Speaker 1:Okay, there you go, and I know she mentioned this on air. And, if you're like me, I usually don't have a pen or pencil or I'm not on my phone to type in on notes. So you're either listening you can do those things or, if you're like me, I will have those links in the show notes. So you'll have an opportunity to go check out the website and the show notes, to check out their Facebook page. I'll have the number in there and I'll even have Miss Cindy's email in there if you want to get Bob and help. So make sure, at some point after you're done listening to this episode, that you go to the show notes, check those things out. Jump in Bob. Miss Cindy, we do. Our tagline is ordinary town, extraordinary stories, and so, in your opinion, what makes Owensboro so unique and different?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm not originally from Owensboro. Originally, I was born and raised partially in Southern California and I've been here for lots and lots of years. I'm an old woman but I love Owensboro because Owensboro has a passion for just being a town that's full of generosity and full of love, and so I see a lot of giving here, a lot of people that care about other people, whether it's homelessness and whether it's animal shelters or whatever it is. There's so many things that I see the generosity of our community and I'm so thankful to live in a community that's so generous and also where families and love and kindness is so promoted.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would completely agree with you there. I'm part of several Facebook groups and just the way that people help each other out is something that I'm just not used to. Like you said, the generosity of Owensboro is just different and they go above and beyond. They'll help out people who are in need. They'll help out, like you said, if there's a stray animal. But I would think, like you know, if you think of Owensboro, oh, there's 60,000 people. I always tell people it's big enough to have things that you need, but it still has a small-town feel to it and that's something.
Speaker 1:You just can't make that up, you just can't fabricate that, and so that's really cool. So stay, stay generous, stay cool, owensboro. But, miss Cindy, I just wanted to go over one more question with you and then we'll get on out of here, and that is you know, you are connected to other nonprofits in Owensboro. What is a good nonprofit? That?
Speaker 2:you think should be on the show, and why. Oh goodness, that's hard to say. Well, I'll just start with this because I worked for them before, so it's easy. But Friends of Sinners is pretty awesome. I worked there for five years. They recently got a new executive director. I'm super excited about him, jordan Wilson. He is just a pretty fantastic guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah he's a stud, yeah and I knew their original founder and executive director and the one since then and they've all been great men of God and I just think they've got a good thing going. We, we my husband and I support them not just prayerfully but financially, and so I think that would be a great choice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and, like she said, joe Welsh, the founder, original executive director of Friends of Sinners. He's now moved on. I'm doing other things. His wife's out there with my sister's keeper check them out, Um, but there. But Jordan's great. He works out the gym that I'm over and I've gotten to know Jordan pretty well and he's he's phenomenal. So if you don't know Jordan Wilson and I'm sure if he listens to this he will surely give you any kind of contact you need to get ahold of him. He's just that great and personable of a guy. So good job, jordan. Good job, joe Bosch. Miss Cindy, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and being our first episode, our first nonprofit. Super exciting, great way to kick off this podcast. And is there any last words you'd like to tell those who are listening to? All Things Owensboro.
Speaker 2:I just appreciate the love that people share. I know with our women and kids. When we go out in the public or we go to different churches or different organizations, people always show us such love and there's no judgment. And I'm really with our women and kids. When we go out in the public or we go to different churches or different organizations, people always show us such love and there's no judgment.
Speaker 1:And I'm really thankful for that. Yeah, so again, owensboro keep being cool, keep being extraordinary, keep being unique and different. That's what makes Owensboro Owensboro and we don't want to change that. So keep listening. We're looking forward to hearing you, your comments, your feedback on this episode. Make sure to do that. You can do that in any of the comments. We love for feedback to get you the best podcast episodes possible, especially about those regarding Owensboro, kentucky. All right, guys, and so go out, check out Fresh Start for Women, check out the website, their Facebook. Again, it's in the show notes. So you have it all at your disposal, so go do it. Have it all at your disposal, so go do it. Thanks for tuning in to All Things Owensboro, where we celebrate the stories, people and places that make our city special. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with someone who loves this town as much as you do. Until next time, owensboro, keep loving local, supporting one another and making Owensboro a place we're all proud to call home.
