Contributing to the Community You Live In - Part 1

In this inspiring interview, Christy Dragotta talks with Esther Miranda about her journey in founding Sweet Oak Collaborative, a nonprofit dedicated to addressing unmet needs in Bryan/College Station. They explore topics like homelessness, food insecurity, transportation, faith, and community action, emphasizing solutions and faith-driven service.

To find out how to get involved with Sweet Oak Collaborative:

Website: www.sweetoaktx.org

Email:  admin@sweetoaktx.org 

Phone: 979-557-2176

Facebook: facebook.com/sweetoaktx

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey guys, I'm so glad you're with me today. Thank you for joining us. I am so excited for you to meet my guest, Esther Miranda, and she is the founder of Sweet Oak Collaborative. It is local to our town here in Bryan College Station. So if you're visiting us from somewhere else, we are so excited to invite you as well into this conversation. You're going to catch vision. I know you will catch vision because Esther is just a sewer of vision. And so it's exciting for me to have her here today. And for those of you who are local, if you are looking for somewhere to spend your time, talent, and your treasure that's going to be sown for the kingdom work, I'm telling you, you're going to love what Esther has to say today. So welcome to our conversation. We're glad you're here. And let's get started. So, Esther, um, tell me a little bit about how you decided to start Sweet Oak Collaborative.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

First, thank you, Christy, for giving me this opportunity. Um Chris. I am so grateful to have met you. Um, Sweet Oak began because I felt a huge need after living in Bryan College Station for over 30 years, that despite all the good work that so many agencies were already doing, uh, stuff was falling through the cracks. And every single day there were people in need not knowing where to go, or had been given a bunch of telephone numbers to call, and with very little minutes on a burner phone, or no gas in a car, or no car at all, uh, did not know where to go to get help in a crisis. And so I thought to myself, okay, you already know the work agencies are doing. Uh, why don't you focus on the unmet needs, the stuff that nobody's doing? And that was the impetus to start a nonprofit.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Okay, very good. So when you talk about the needs that you were seeing that were unmet, um, one of the things that you've said to me before when we met, I had mentioned the homeless community and Brian College Station. And one of the things that Esther mentioned was she called them the invisible unsheltered. And I thought, even just the language of that, you know, it reminds me of adoption. In adoption, we have an adopted daughter, and sometimes people will say things like, Well, what about her real mother, or what about her real father? And it's so funny because I'm pretty real, right? And I am her mother, and you consider yourself the real mother. Oh, of course, and so, but we use terminology in adoption like birth mother, right, and things like that. So I feel like this is a way to give dignity, yeah, even just in the way that we have this conversation, right? And so I know the invisible unsheltered are part of your heartbeat, what's something that you're passionate about. So um tell me about how you how did you first notice? Because I know you've shared with me, um, at first it looked like in Bryant Color Station there were no people who were invisible and unsheltered. So share a little about that.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

So uh I moved here in 1991 from India, where poverty is so visible on the street. Uh, my mother's home, uh, we were an upper middle class family, but down our road was a slump. So uh on one side of the gate are people who are low to no income. I would see families with three or four kids one day and only two kids the next day. And if I said, Where's the other little one? They'd say, Oh, they died yesterday, they had diarrhea, or they had tuberculosis, and they died. And so poverty and death was so matter-of-fact, and you saw it on the street. And so I come to Bryan College Station, and we're living this very comfortable, uh, blessed life, and my kids were going to public school, and I was mostly a Collin Station resident. People had told me, oh, Bryan is a different town, it's a different culture. Well, I didn't know what they were talking about till I got a job in Bryan and started seeing what they meant. And I at first I thought there are no poor people in Bryan Collin Station because I don't see them. Occasionally, if you were in downtown, you might see somebody with a grocery cart. And so my image of poverty that I brought with me from India was not what I was seeing in this uh very beautiful city. And I it wasn't until I became a caseworker with St. Vincent de Paul. Uh, we're called Vincentians, we we did casework, but the term Vincentians use are home visitors.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

So when we got a call from somebody in a crisis needing help with rent or their lights had got cut off, we made home visits in pairs. Two people would go together.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

And that was my first glimpse of the depth and breadth of poverty in Brian Collins Station. When I entered a home and saw a hole in the wall covered with a towel where a window unit was supposed to be, or not a single chair, bed, couch, table, uh, and life was on the floor, along with roaches and Cheerios and video games and homework. And um I realized they have no furniture. Start a furniture ministry. So we started a furniture ministry. But um the homeless, which I call the invisible unsheltered, the image most people have when you use the word homeless is the druggies and the drunks in the park. Uh the ones who live in the shadows, the ones who find a bench or a church porch to sleep at. And that is so far from true. We do have those individuals in our city. Sure. But I learned of single mothers with children living in their cars, grandparents who were priced out of their apartments because the landlord decided to give a give it a coat of paint and jack the rent up$300, and suddenly folks who were living in their apartment for 12 and 15 years on a social security check were without a home and started living in their cars. These are the different kinds of people that are part of our unsheltered population. Yes. And and I want people to know that they sometimes live on the floor of I know a family that lived on the floor of a garage of a cousin's home. A mother with five kids, uh, until the mother's boyfriend kicked them out. That was their home. But they did not have a brick and mortar home, they were unsheltered. Yes. Those who live in a mobile home on somebody's couch or the floor, they are unsheltered.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Um, this is actually how I met you is I had seen, so this is how I heard about what Esther's doing a few months back. Um I guess it was in 2025, the city of Bryan had come in and told that RV park that they were going to have to shut it down. And so that was the first I had seen of Sweet Oak Collaborative, and the first I heard of you. And so I know that this is something you're very passionate about when people, those there had been people living at that mobile home park for how many years? So many years.

SPEAKER_00 7:50

15 years, yes, many of them, and and suddenly being told in three weeks we're shutting it down or we're demolishing your RV and clearing the land. And so unfair, yes, uh, so disingenuous to act like you know you care about people. No, you don't. Because to do something that drastic after 15 years of them living there with such little notice, uh, and these are people, many of them elderly. Uh, one gentleman was in hospice care in his Marvi. Yes, and and with all his equipment.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

And uh these RVs, many of them were falling apart. It was not necessarily the safest environment. But the truth is that was their home, and it's much safer than the street, especially when you're talking about somebody that has hospice equipment and things like that. And so Sweet Oak Collaborative stepped in, and that looks like I say sweet oak collaborative, but we all understand there are there are a few faces behind Sweet Oak Collaborative, and that it's a group effort. Yeah, right now your nonprofit doesn't employ anyone.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

We are still, we do not have any full-time paid staff, and we have no funding. So, no funding. We've gone for three years doing monumental work, yeah, and I don't say it to brag because I had never added the numbers till my board members told me, as though we need to know how many adults, how many children, how many people you fed, how many people used our emergency shelter, how many people are in transitional housing, and I had to go back three years and really count the volume of work we've done. Yes, and that was uh that was humbling and uh mind-blowing at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Yes, so I have right here, um, you brought me a couple of papers reports. Yeah, we first met, and so she has a beautiful impact report printed up, and so if anybody wants to see this, you can um reach out. I'll put stuff in the show notes so that you can reach out, and then she also has a lovely brochure that just talks about everything that they do, and um so I want to talk about this a little bit because you do emergency housing. So, in that situation where they were shutting down that park and they only had a little of time to get out, I know you helped house several different families and people that had lived there and you helped them find other shelter. Yep. And so on here, I know you said for emergency housing, you've helped 69 adults and 43 children. And the average stay on this, I mean, this is just talking about coming in when people have an it's an emergency, and the average stay is two to three days. So we're not talking about people that are just wanting to loaf around and let somebody else pay all their bills. We're not talking about that.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

We are talking about people who are willing to work, who are willing to put effort into their own housing, but they just come into a hard situation in a crisis, yes, crisis situations, so it's people who are losing their homes, it is people who um maybe through no fault of their own have their hours cut and suddenly their paycheck is only half of what they used to get, so they can't pay their rent. But it is also uh sexual assault and domestic violence victims who need a safe and anonymous place to go. And when they cannot go anywhere except back to their abuser, we look at it as that person needs a hotel room and we need to pick them up and take them for one day or two days or three days till we figure out where they're going next. Uh, you want to get to your sister in Dallas, okay? We're gonna help you get to Dallas. Or your cousin in New York, okay. Now we need an air ticket. Oh, you left with only the clothes on your back. Well, we need a police report and a police officer to go with you when your partner is not at home to get your laptop, to get your passport, to get your social security card, to get your clothes, and then we help to move you. So all of those are examples of emergency shelter. Somebody's getting an apartment, they've waited a long time for their voucher, and they had their inspection, and now it's three more days before the apartment is ready. Well, we'll put you in a hotel room for three days because you've come this far and we want to make sure we get you into your next home. So the the nature of emergencies is a whole different range, but we do not say yes until we've done an intake because we believe in a hand up and not a handout.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Sweet Oak is all about hand-ups, not handouts. So we want to know the whole story. Every emergency hotel room that we give is because there is a plan for what's gonna happen after two nights or after three nights. And if the three nights become a week, but there is a plan, we'll extend it to a week. If somebody needs two months or three months, we're gonna say, Well, we can't pay for two and three months, but I will get you the best rate. And we negotiated a very low contract rate with a couple of hotels. So a family that needs to stay a whole month till they get their disability check or their social security check, and they're willing to pay for the nights that we can't pay for, we're gonna help you. We'll we'll check you in, we'll pay for the first two or three nights, and after that, you're gonna pay with the special rate. So, yeah, that's our emergency shelter program.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

I love that. And so back to the invisible unshelter. Sorry, I took you on a whole journey, but I just kind of wanted people, I want people to get the big view of how far reaching this goes. It is if really you are ministering to people who need pantry support. You they just need food, right? Like they need food.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

I do want to get back for just a bit to the invisible unshelter because every single day, bar none, I will get calls from the people in the park, from the people who do not have a plan, for from the people who do not get an income, saying, I heard you provide hotel rooms, I need a room. And I tell them, we don't just give out hotel rooms. Right. Uh, do you want us to help you get into a program where they'll help you look for work? Uh, have you tried this the homeless shelter? I will get you a bed. Many of these don't want to go to the shelter, they don't want to look for jobs, they don't want to be in a program. If I say, Will you pass the drug test? Well, no, not really. I take this, that, and the other. So there are some people we offer help, but we can't help if they don't want the help we are offering. Yes, because you're not enable. We're not enabling, we are not a band-aid, we're not a handout. Yes, we are about hand-ups. Yes. So if you're willing to let us hear your whole story and I only ask two things of them, do not lie to me and do not leave anything out. Because I will find out. Because when I start calling around to all the agencies asking for help and who can do what, somebody or the other often tells me they can't return to the shelter because this is what they did when they were here six months ago. When I hear that and you've left it out of your story, I say, I am truly sorry. I want to help you, but I can't. Yes. I need you to do this or this or this and come back to me. And when I see that you're willing to make an effort, we are willing to make as much of an effort for you.

SPEAKER_02 15:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

But but we're not going to do all the work for you. Now, some people are truly in need. Very elderly, disabled, veterans living in their recliner. They have no family, they have no transportation. So when we hear the story, we try to be as flexible and compassionate. So it's not a one-size fits-all.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Right.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

It's not a one-size fits all. Uh, you asked about pantry. Yeah, food, food insecurity is huge. Huge. Um we have all these beautiful pantries in town and the food bank. And people often say, Well, why do they not have food? They can just go get food. We got all this food. And I say, Well, if they don't have transportation, how do they get there? Right. We saw how people who didn't never needed to use a food pantry got snap benefits every month. And what happened a couple months ago? No snap, overnight, can't use your card. Then what? Then what? So we ran a drive. We called it the CAN Drive. And CAN was not just Cannes, but Community Action Network. We founded the Community Action Network, and we started collecting uh items to give away to people who could not use their Snap benefits, and it it took them through that couple of weeks of just sheer anxiety, terror, stress. How do I feed my family? It's very real. Those of us who just go to the grocery store and buy meat at whatever it is a pound, buy strawberries at whatever it is a pound, we never think about, you know, how am I going to use these last$22 on my card? Right. They'd buy the cheapest food, the most unhealthy food, because they got to feed five people at home. Right. You know? So food insecurity is very real. And uh we were blessed by uh the first Baptist Church pantry on Welsh Street, who told us we could piggyback on what they do every Tuesday morning, and they allowed Sweet Oak to uh deliver food to 20 households every week. Wow, and we've done that since last May, and this number here of delivering over to 1500 families. Uh that number says 111. We now have about 128 families on our list, but we're limited to 20 every week. That they let us come and pick up uh food and groceries and take it to them.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Wow, yeah, that's beautiful. And I love that's part of the collaborative, right? Like that's part of the name is you are collaborating with other people. We want to bring in other people to work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is impossible to reach this many people by yourself, and so one of the things that I really hope my listeners and the people watching will really take to heart is you need more volunteers. Absolutely, and there's so many people sitting at home, and and I'm sorry, but I'm not sorry to say this. You know, this is called Get Honest. So we just get honest. You know, you can spend time being rageful on Facebook about all of the injustices. You can spend all your time talking about poor leadership and different things, or you can get involved and do something. And so that is my action call to you is to say, come get involved, get off Facebook, get off your computer, and put feet to your faith. That's what this whole podcast is about. This is this is an organization that is such a great picture of actually putting feet to faith because you're not just talking about the problem, you are looking for solutions. And you have the phrase that you used with me. I can't remember exactly what you said. Do you know what I'm talking about? Where you were talking about you are solutions-oriented.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

Okay. I believe that you are either an excuse-driven person or a solutions-driven person. I love it. An excuse-driven person is always looking for ways that something won't work. You can't do that because we can't pay for that because our mission doesn't allow us because our federal dollars won't pay for that because there's always a reason for why something can't happen. Yes. And solutions-driven people are constantly saying, okay, I'm going to find a way to go around that mountain, to go around that tree. I'm going to find another way to do it. And solutions-driven people are just adamant about going after solutions. You know, if I can't do it with you, I'm going to find somebody else I can do it with. You know? Yeah. Um, and uh, and it's amazing when solutions-driven people get together and they sit around the table and they're like, okay, they tried that and they tried that, and well, we're gonna try this, and let's see where it goes. They're unafraid to take risks, they're unapologetic about what their hearts are telling them to do. Yes, passion.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

They have this passion for it, yes, unapologetic.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

If I offend somebody, I'm gonna say, I'm sorry, it wasn't intentional, it wasn't personal. It was not it was not a personal attack. But I'm not gonna back down about talking about what is, you know, and people of faith, when people say how you have faith, I always say faith is your heart saying yes to what your head has not fully understood yet. Yeah, and it's it's the same with solutions-oriented people. You are believing in something, you are saying this is what is. There are people hungry, yeah, there are people living in their cars, there are people with no transportation, walking home three and four miles at night after a job because the buses have stopped running. Okay? I I just want people in a community, especially those who are comfortable in their homes, who are able to shop at a grocery store, who have a nice car and can drive, who never have to think about walking three miles. Okay? I just want them to think about the people who can't. Right. And and to and to get away from the excuse of they're lazy people. That is something I've heard a lot. Or they just want the benefits, they just want a handout. And I said, Do you know some of these people personally? Because I do. Right. You've worked right beside them. They are hardworking, good people. And every single one of us is one cancer diagnosis, one car accident, one funeral, one foreclosure, one eviction away from being in their shoes. Yes. And until it happens to you, you do not even know what it feels like. Right. No compassion.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

But I think I love what you just said, and I want to highlight that because I feel like you know, people do feel very secure in their situation. Well, I have insurance, will I have this, will I have that? But it's just what you said. It's one death, one phone call, one life-changing moment. And we aren't in control of those things. And so when when that happens, you know, I would encourage people to have compassion before that happens. That judging to them. Yeah. Right. That judging. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

Like you can make a choice to go from two incomes to one income. Right. But that was an intentional choice. Right. What about the person who had no control when their boss didn't give them 40 hours for next week and only gave them 20? Right. And now your paycheck is half. And now your lights are turned off. And they call us. Can you help me pay my light bill? They were not lazy people. They were getting ready to go to work that next week. And suddenly they're only getting half a paycheck. And that's why they called to get their lights back on. And I tell people, you know, you asked, you mentioned volunteering. I have elderly people, I have people who say, I don't know how I can help you, Esther. I'm not tech-savvy. I can't lift after my back surgery. I don't drive, or my eyes are not, you know, well enough to deal with night driving. Okay, I get all of it. I say, uh, do you talk to your grandchildren every week? Yes, we do FaceTime on the weekends. I said, where do you do FaceTime? Or by phone? Okay. Do you text? Oh, I can text. I said, can you make five texts for me a week? I can do that. Can you make ten phone calls before pantry day to tell our families we're coming at 12 o'clock? Oh, I can make phone calls. I said, everybody can do something.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Yes, good.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

You can be in your recliner and make phone calls. You do not have to lift heavy boxes to help in the pantry. You can enter my data after Tuesday, and that's gonna save me a half hour.

SPEAKER_02 24:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

Sit at your computer where you're comfortable. And so when I give them those examples, they're like, oh, okay, I can do that. I can do that.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

Yes. That's something for everyone. And so what would you say right now? I mean, I know you have many needs, right? Far reaching. But if I put you on the spot and I said, Esther, what is the primary need? I mean, we joked earlier. I she really needs a personal assistance. She really does. Because she's, you see, she has her hand in so many things, and it all takes time to, you know, if she's got five different people calling her for five different, I'm going to call them ministries that she's doing here, you know, that they're all answering to her. That all takes time. So she really needs a personal assistance. So if you're the one that's listening right now and you're like, man, I've been looking for a way to really make a difference and volunteer my time, please reach out because I know she needs that. But what would you say for the general, I guess, the general population, maybe not just that one, but what do you need? I mean, I know people can give, right? That can't give up their time, they can give up their money.

SPEAKER_00 25:54

Yes, and I wanted to mention, I'm glad you asked that.

SPEAKER_01 25:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:59

Five dollars can turn a life around. Five bucks. Okay. We need money, a lot of money, because we have dreams, we have not gone after any grants, because I need grant writers. If you are somebody that loves to research grants, we need you. If you are somebody who loves to write, we need you. Okay? That's two big, big, big things. Okay. Because if you don't ask, you won't receive. Right. God says ask, I'm asking. So we need money. But people think that I have to write a big check. No. There was a gentleman who had left the homeless shelter. I was encouraging him to look for work. He had had no success. He was now sleeping on the couch in a friend's house. And I thought he's just not making enough of an effort. I would send him leads for jobs. One day he called and he said, I got an interview with Jack in the Box. And I said, Great! When's your interview? Tomorrow. And he said, Will you pay for an Uber to get to the interview? I said, Absolutely not. You're a young man and you can take the bus. And he said, I've never taken the bus before. I said, Okay, there's a bus stop two blocks from where you're living. Well, I don't even have money for the bus ticket. I said, you know what? Bus tickets are a dollar a ride. I will bring you five tickets. So the next day, that later that day, I dropped off five tickets to him. And he took the bus the next day and he called me that evening and he said, It went great, and they're gonna run my background check. And they said, if it all works out, I need to come back for training tomorrow. I said, Great, you still have three tickets, so you can take the bus back for your training tomorrow. And then I never heard from him for I don't know, two or three months. And then suddenly my phone rang one day and it was him. And I thought, here we go. He's called to ask for something, and I was wrong. He called to say, Miss Esther, I don't need any more bus tickets. I bought myself a monthly pass, and the job is going well. Wow. Four dollars, four, I'm holding up four, four dollars is what it took to turn his life around. Yeah, but it is the safety net, it is the mentoring, it is the holding their feet to the fire, it is giving a little. I didn't have to give him the five bucks, but he's already made the effort now and he's got an interview, right? And I'm thinking five bucks is just five bucks. So when I tell people about donating, I tell them if you eat out, if you buy a burger, if if you go to spend on anything, you go to the movies and buy popcorn, you can give five bucks.

SPEAKER_02 28:51

Right.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

And five bucks can turn her life around. Yes, beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

That's beautiful, and so even in that story, I'm hearing she needs people that are willing to mentor, right? You need people that are willing to walk beside somebody and help them figure out how to apply for the job, yes, how to get the job.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

If if you've been a counselor, if you've been a school nurse, if you've been a therapist, if you've been any in any of those positions and you've retired, well, you have spent a work life of listening, of advising, of empathy, of walking beside somebody. Okay, why let all that lifetime of work experience go to waste just because you've retired? Volunteer for a couple of hours every week. Say, do you have a family? Do you have a male or a female or a young girl or a teenager? Tell me, tell me whom you enjoy working with. I'll point you to a family and say, okay, call them once a week. Take them to McDonald's for a coffee or meet them in the park so the kids can play and you can sit on a bench and talk. There are some mothers working so hard they never get out of the house, they never get into the sunshine, they they have to take their children everywhere, they go. And how nice to just be able to sit outside and visit with another person who's just gonna be like the companion. I like to use the word companioning.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

Companion somebody on their journey, whether it's a phone call once a week, whether I meet you once a month in the library or the park. Like the$4 ticket story, people can visit at the libraries for free. There are meeting rooms, there is Wi-Fi, uh, there are places to meet, sit in the air conditioned mall, there are recliner chairs, you don't have to spend money, you don't have to take them out to dinner. Just pick a place and meet them and spend some time with them. It's beautiful. Yeah, yeah. So what uh I I'm gonna rewind here because I didn't talk about how we decided our top three initiatives. When Sweet Oak, when we decided, uh, and this was me convincing, uh not convincing, I literally I sold my dream to uh my gullible uh friends. And they were like, Oh my gosh, here she goes again. She's got another big thing she wants to do, but I guess we're on board, and I said, Okay, I know nothing about forming a nonprofit, I don't know how to fill out these 40, 50 forms for the IRS and state of Texas, and they were like, Well, how hard can it be? Essay you got a PhD, how hard can it be? Well, a PhD doesn't buy you everything. So we said, let's take on this challenge and let's take a shot at forming a nonprofit. But when you fill out those forms, you have to come up with what's your mission, what's your goals, what are your priorities. And I did not want to just assume oh, there are hungry people, oh there's homeless people. I wanted to actually have feedback from the community about what are you seeing, what are you hearing. So, what we started to do long before we got the nonprofit, I started holding what we still call community conversations. And we had a space that a church gave us to use to have our meetings when we had no space. My phone was my office, right? They gave us for free their home that they had and said, use it, launch your nonprofit. So I would invite people in and say, we're talking about homelessness, we're talking about food insecurity, we're talking about transportation, we're talking about the need for a database, we're talking about how do we collaborate on case management. And so we'd have a different topic, and people would come in: five people, eight people, ten people. When it got bigger for that space, I would take Larry Ringer library meeting rooms, which are free. Anybody who's a library member, if you're ever looking for a place to meet, we've got two beautiful libraries in town, Clara Mounts and the Larry Ringer. You can book the space, it's for free. Wow, it's got Wi-Fi, it's got the screen. So we'd have Saturday morning community conversations. And that was the beginning of all this work. Yes, because people would walk in and we'd break up into small groups, and I'd say, if your passion is food and security, how do we extend pantry work in this town? And then I had people who said, Well, I'm about eating healthy food, but I'm into community gardens. So we formed a whole community gardens group, people who like to garden and want to grow the food and supplement what they get from the pantries because you don't always get the fresh fruit and vegetables. Right. So the listening at each of these community events we held, and we held them every month, once a month on a Saturday morning, and sometimes there were 20 people, sometimes there were 50 people, but every meeting we were hearing. Yes. This is what's happening in Brian. Did you know? Did you know? Oh, we didn't know. Oh, tell us more. So then when it came time to identify what is Sweet Oak going to focus on, shelter rose to the very top. Yes. And I'm not talking about affordable housing, which is owning a home. That's not what I'm talking about. Why? Because we have agencies like the Affordable Housing Corporation, we've got Habitat for Humanity that's building homes. We have these groups. Something I should mention about Sweet Oak, when we say our focus is unmet needs, it means we don't need to duplicate good stuff that somebody else is doing. We should conserve our volunteers and our time and our money for the stuff that nobody's doing, the stuff that isn't getting done. Right. So shelter, which became emergency shelter on one side at the hotel rooms and transitional housing, which I haven't talked about, but I will, became the two arms of shelter that became our focus. And we started the emergency shelter program and the transitional housing program. Okay. Second initiative was food insecurity because we started hearing more and more about the elderly, the veterans, the disabled, those returning from hospital after surgery. You know, when you have lots of friends to form a meal train and deliver your groceries and deliver a cooked meal, you're so blessed. What about the people who don't have anybody creating a meal train for them? Taking food and groceries became priority number two. And then transportation became initiative number three. Transportation this far has pretty much just been giving somebody bus tickets or paying for an Uber ride to a doctor's appointment or a job interview. Uh we did not want to encourage give me a tank of gas. Because you get a lot of those calls. Sure. We will fill a tank of gas if we know you got to drive to temple for your blood work or your specialist appointment. We will fill a tank of gas if you're starting your first week of work and the buses do not run at night, but your friend is willing to give you a ride every night at 10 o'clock. We will fill his tank of gas. It goes back to intake and case management. Right. We want to know the whole story. We're not cold, we're not taking cold calls. People call me every week. Can you deliver? We're not Uber and DoorDash. Right. We have 128 families on our list, but we can only take to 20. So I'm trying to decide every Saturday and Sunday who are the families most in need. Everybody's in need. Everybody would love a delivery.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

Right.

SPEAKER_00 36:50

How many of us use curbside and DoorDash and stuff to deliver? Of course, we want to avoid a trip and waiting two hours at the pantry to get our stuff. So if you can deliver, why not? Right. And I have to tell them, I'm sorry. We're limited to 20 people every week, you know. But my good friend, I have a good friend, her name is Sybil. And every time she hears me saying, you know, so-and-so took advantage of me, so-and-so told me a big tall tale, and they were not being truthful. I'm not going to do that again. And she'd say, Esther, everybody's allowed to screw up one time. It's okay, let them one time. But you don't have to let them do it to you over and over again. So the next time they call, they're going to say, I'm so sorry. And that was a good lesson. Don't say no the first time.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:38

Try to say yes.

SPEAKER_01 37:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

Do your very best to get to yes until the yes has to become a no. Right. If they gave you reason for it to become a no, then it makes it easy to tell them no the next time. Right. And because my educator hat is always on from being school teacher and principal and all of that. I never just say no without giving them a reason. Because I feel you need to be educated on why I said no. Yes. It was not to be mean. No, it's to help them grow. Yes. Yes. You need to understand. And some people will say, like, I call these ten places. Yesterday there was somebody who said, I couldn't get into the shelter. And but my friend who's in the shelter told me there are five empty beds. And I read it on Facebook. And he doesn't know that the director of the shelter is my friend. So I took a screenshot and I texted her late at night. And I said, This is what he just said. Can you share anything with me? She said, Of course we do have five empty beds. But he's not allowed to return for this reason, this reason, this reason, and this reason. Well, he wasn't going to put those reasons on Facebook. Right. So I feel the need to educate the public about why some people are not allowed. Did you not do your chores? Did you lie? Did you leave and not come back by curfew? Did you did you try to sneak drugs in? Did you get into a confrontation in the cafeteria? Are you causing trouble? There are a variety of reasons why people are not allowed back in. People need to understand the shelter is not a it's not the Hilton or the Marriott.

SPEAKER_01 39:24

Right.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

It's an inconvenient place for a temporary time that gives you a bed, that gives you three meals, where you can take a hot shower, where you can do your laundry. You're there because you're in a crisis. And we want to help you get out of there as fast as we can. Right. But I want to know you're willing to go there. But if you've got all these drugs in your system and you can't pass the test, I can't get you in.

SPEAKER_01 39:51

Right.

SPEAKER_00 39:52

Even if I want to help you. So it's all these things when you start listening to the story, but also asking the right questions. I want people, like I said, counselors and therapists and nurses and people who have been involved with care. Right. They know how to ask the right questions. They know how to see the signs. And they're like, oh, that doesn't, that doesn't sound right, it doesn't look right. So I'm gonna try to find out more. And that helps us to use resources well.

SPEAKER_01 40:23

Yes. And I think you know, we've I've had a podcast, we did one on addiction and boundaries and things like that. And so I hear, you know, there may be some of you that are listening that you had you've struggled with addiction and things like that. And there are, I'm gonna just narrow it down to two, but basically two types of addicts. I'm sure there are more, but one is the one that's hit the bottom and said, I can't do this anymore. I've got to have help and I'm ready to get the help. And there's the other that's still in denial. Well, it's not that bad. I'm not like everybody else, I don't need those meetings, you're not talking to me. And so you can only help the one that's ready to help themselves, and there are beautiful programs.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Two of my very dear friends are well, in fact, one of them was a meth addict for over 10 or 15 years. Wow. And I didn't know much about some of these drugs, and I said, Well, how difficult is it to get off of it? And she told me, Esther, one out of maybe every 20 that we have taken into a program, walked with them through detox, rehab, through a faith-based program, meetings, Bible study, whatever the person agreed to. Okay, she said, maybe one in 20 won't relapse. And she said, I'm lucky to have been one of them. Wow. And that's how she started her nonprofit. But but street drugs and the pull of it, there's a certain comfort, I guess, and I don't want to offend anybody because I'm sure there are people who are struggling with that exact decision that you just described. Am I ready to get out of this way of life? Am I ready to get off the street or off the bottle? Am I ready to stop trafficking myself to buy my drugs? The number of people we've helped who are sex trafficking themselves, yes, just to get the next hit. I can't say I understand it because I've not lived it. Right. But I do want to say to anybody who's listening who's in that situation, your situation is real. Your situation is yours uniquely for whatever reason you got into that situation. Maybe somebody was just horrible to you. You've dealt with terrible trauma or sadness or disaster in your life, and you feel it's not your fault. But I want to say to you, there are some beautiful people and amazing programs that can help you if you want the help. Okay? And it's not an easy decision to make. I realize it is not, right? But there is hope, there is people, there is good programs out there. And I strongly encourage you to just think about it. You don't have to make a decision overnight, just keep thinking about it when you're when you're really in despair.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

Because there is freedom. There is. And I think that's the thing, is if you know you need freedom, you need it. It's time, it's time to be free. There are programs, there are people who will walk beside you and help you to get the help you need to live a life that right now, even if I said write down what your imagination is for the best life you could possibly have, you could look at that. That you write, and you Could say I don't believe that's ever gonna happen, but I'm telling you there is freedom and there's a life better than anything you could even write down on the other side of this addiction, and so I'm I'm really grateful that you brought that up. And so for that, what program specifically would you say if someone called me, this is who I would point them to, and is it different for female and male?

SPEAKER_00 44:26

Well, yes and no. Uh, so if you want a faith-based program, we've got the Nest Ministry, we've got Refuge Place for Men, we've got SOS ministries in town where you not only attend faith-based classes and healing, but they're teaching you a trade, you can sign up for you know um all kinds of job-related skills. You live there. I think it's a nine-month program, or I'm not sure, nine month to one year. Uh, so those are faith-based programs. We have promises and we have more than rehab, two agencies in town, where there's 30-day, 60-day, 90-day programs. For many, that is that is like a trial period to see can I do this? Like a soft reset almost. Yes. And then if you get through that, okay, now I'm ready to go into an Oxford house. Did you know there's Oxford houses for men, there's Oxford houses for women. It is sober living, it is a community. It is, I think you only pay$140 every week for rent, so it's like for$560 you get your room or you're sharing with somebody, but you're learning to share a TV, a kitchen, to share the chores or take the trash out. Many of these uh individuals have never had to do their share to live in community. So a halfway house program, one of these sober living programs where everybody in the house is accountable. Yes, you're all watching out for each other. There are weekly meetings. So you can't just say, I'll break the rule and nobody in the house is gonna care. No.

SPEAKER_02 46:11

Right.

SPEAKER_00 46:11

Everybody in the house cares for your sobriety because you breaking your sobriety is going to affect me. You bringing alcohol into the house with your boyfriend or girlfriend is going to affect me. So there are those beautiful programs which are working. Okay, that's the next step towards independence. I recently met a lady who's gone through that and she said, I'm done with that, I'm ready for my own home. Can you help me? I really want to have my own home. And I said, Okay, let's talk about financial planning and your budget. Because I know somebody who'll help you get your own home. Her eyes weren't that big, she couldn't believe. She says, You mean I'll pay my own mortgage every month? I don't know if I can do that. I said, Well, how much did you get for your income tax refund last year? And she said,$7,000. And I said, What did you spend it on? And she said, Well, I put six thousand dollars into this Nissan and it's already broken down, and um I got scammed. I said, Okay, do you know how much you're gonna get this year? Well, I think I'm gonna get seven or eight thousand. I said, Okay. Do you know that with seven thousand, seven thousand, and seven thousand, you got the down payment for a house? And she looked at me like I was I was crazy. I said, You gotta come and talk to my friend Jay, and he'll tell you how you can buy a house with three income tax refunds. Yeah, and he'll set you up to get the minimum interest mortgage. And suddenly this young lady's the wheels, I could see the wheels turning in her head, her eyes were like sunshine, and suddenly she had a reason, and she said, Miss Esther, I'm not gonna touch my refund when it comes this year. So good. Some of them don't know what is possible till we tell them what's possible. Right. And I feel it's our job to tell them, you know. Even on the days when I can't help somebody with what they're asking, I told you my educator hat is on. Tell them what's out there, tell them what's possible, tell them the right person to go talk to. Yes, don't give them a bunch of phone numbers and just leave them nowhere. You know, if you want to be helpful, be really helpful. Right. Yeah, yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, lots of good programs. And I I make it my job to get to know these people because when you build relationships with these people, I can pick up the phone at 10 o'clock at night and say, Hey, can you take somebody in tomorrow?

unknown 48:44

Right.

SPEAKER_00 48:44

And they'll tell me yes or no. Related to getting into a program, so many people don't have insurance. Yesterday I had lunch with my friend who knows somebody who does marketplace insurance in 24 hours. She will set it up by the first of the next month, you're insured. And I said, Well, is it only Ambetter insurance? She's like, No, it's United, you can get Blue Cross Blue Shield, you can get Aetna, you can get all of these. And you pick where you have doctors who will take that insurance. So if you've never seen a doctor, I had one lady who's been sex trafficked across multiple states, she has not seen a doctor, she is in such a bad physical condition, she needs medicine, and she says, I have no insurance. I said, I want you to talk to my friend who'll get you the insurance and we'll set up a doctor appointment for you.

SPEAKER_01 49:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 49:34

It's those kinds of things, but people don't know what is possible for them.

SPEAKER_01 49:38

Right.

SPEAKER_00 49:40

Uh, another person called and said, You know, I fled from one of the other states, and she said, So I've lost all our birth certificates and I've lost my social security card, and the DMV office is making it hard for me to get my license renewed because I've a tick got a ticket in the other state. I said, I have somebody who goes to the DMV office every week and helps people get their license back. They know people at the Social Security Office. The first thing you have to do is tell them your social security card is missing. Have you done that? No. Okay, well, let's stop there. Do you know your number? Yes, I know my number. Okay, okay. We'll help you get your social security card replaced. Yes. And it's those little things.

SPEAKER_01 50:25

They feel momentous, they just feel huge for someone in that situation because they there's so many little things that have been evolved into this humanoid thing. And they think it's hopeless. So when you give them the well, we can do this, it's like everything clears up.

SPEAKER_00 50:42

Yep, yep. So what we do is just like when somebody says, What do you do? It's so hard for me to even like there are probably 10 other things that I haven't even told you about, but it's just everything overlaps.

SPEAKER_02 50:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 50:58

So we have OnRamp, a great organization in town, and now they've expanded to other cities, which is a testament to Blake and his his heart and his team. Yes, and um uh last week he had me mention in a podcast that he did with somebody else that I have barely met for more than two minutes and don't even know personally, yeah, but he's been following our work. So, in the course of that podcast, Blake starts talking about me and Sweet Oak, and this friend starts talking about our work, and so he posted it on Facebook, and I felt the need to go on there and tell his world, people, you need to know that Sweet Oak formed because of Blake Jennings and what he did to help us. When I didn't know anything, he said, Here are bylaws, here's a certificate of formation, here's how you get your EIN number. Just go for it, Esther, just go for it. And so I did. But for the last two years, he's been hearing me say that transportation is one of our top initiatives. And I kept saying, if only I had a 15-passenger van, we'd do this and this and this and this and this. And two weeks ago, it became even more urgent to me because I was waiting for us to buy a van, and we don't have the money to buy a van.

SPEAKER_02 52:27

Right.

SPEAKER_00 52:28

Okay, at the right time, God's gonna send me a van. So after this podcast and all of that, Blake said, Esther, you keep talking about the van and all of that. You haven't applied to On-Ramp to get a van. I said, applied. I thought the vehicles you provide are only for families in need that we refer. Because you know, to get a vehicle from Onram, you have to have a caseworker or a friend or a church nominate you, and part of that nomination is you have to have known the person and their need for at least six months, you have to have worked with them and walked beside their goals, you have to take responsibility for them setting and keeping their goals. Okay, so it's a big thing, it's not just fill out a form and say my friend needs a car. No. So I have nominated for a couple of people before, and they've got vehicles from on ramp, and I'm so thankful. But I didn't know that we could nominate ourselves, and I said, What? And he goes, Yes, you're a non-profit, and we have a whole separate application for nonprofit helping another non-profit.

SPEAKER_01 53:38

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 53:38

So you need to turn in your application soon, and we're gonna try to get you a van. I was just blown away. I was just like, oh my god, and I went to my board, and now, of course, the whole story has changed. Oh, if we are getting a van, how wonderful that would be if it went around town with sweet old collaborative painted on both sides, and people said, What's that van? What are they doing? Yes, but it became more urgent this past two weeks when I met with a young lady who had got a job,$20 an hour, but working at Sanderson Farm. What she told me was, she said they pay$20 an hour, but I have to pay$20 every night at midnight to get back home for my Uber ride. Right. And she said, but half my paycheck goes on Uber. And that was when a 15-passenger van can bring 14 people back at midnight, and they don't all have to pay$20 each, even if they paid five or eight or ten dollars, they're saving money, and we are able to pay the driver and gas. Yes, and the light bulb went puff in my head. The solutions were very clear. Fill out that application, Esther, get it to Blake as soon as you can, get a van and start helping people move forward faster. Yes. That's another goal of Sweet Oak. Moving forward faster. How do you help families in crisis move forward faster?

SPEAKER_01 55:13

Okay, guys, that's the end of our talk for today. We've run out of time, but it's a great question to leave on. How do we help families move forward faster? So I'm gonna do something I haven't ever done before. We're gonna do a special midweek episode. So this is released on a Tuesday. Our next episode will be released Saturday because there was just so much good information. I didn't want you to miss any of it. So stay tuned because Saturday we will have another episode that picks up right where we left off and how can we help families move forward faster? And we're also going to cover some additional things that we haven't even gotten to yet. That's how much stuff Miss Esther does for our community. So if your heart has stirred to do something, but you haven't put feet to it yet, you haven't gotten involved somewhere, no matter where you want to help, Miss Esther is such an amazing person with Sweet Oak Collaborative on helping you get connected to the people that you want to help. So thanks for being with us today. I look forward to seeing you Saturday. Have a great week.