Ep 039: Holiday Zimmerman: I Said No Four Times...Until God Brought It Back, Part 1

What if the opportunities you're resisting are the very ones God is using to shape your purpose?

After the unexpected loss of her father and a season of deep depression, Holiday Zimmerman wasn't looking to start a nonprofit. In fact, when opportunity after opportunity landed in front of her, she kept saying no.

Four times.

Every time she said no, the opportunity came back.

Today, Holiday serves as CEO of The Hub OC, a nonprofit that partners with churches, schools, cities, and volunteers to serve people experiencing homelessness, poverty, human trafficking, and hardship throughout Orange County, California.

In Part 1, Holiday shares how one unexpected "yes" changed the course of her life, why she believes God doesn't give up on us when we're afraid, and the incredible ways He provided exactly what was needed at every step.

In this episode:

•  Losing her father and walking through depression 
• The nonprofit she never planned to lead 
•  Why she kept saying "no" 
•  The unexpected opportunities that kept coming back 
•  Learning to trust God's timing over her own 
•  The moments that confirmed she was exactly where she was supposed to be 

Learn more about Holiday and The Hub OC:

Website: https://thehuboc.org

Meet the team: https://thehuboc.org/our-team

Instagram: @thehuboc

Every life has a story worth telling. Follow Unspoken Lives Podcast on your favorite podcast app and join the conversation. Visit unspokenlivespodcast.com and follow @unspokenlivespodcast on Instagram. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to Unspoken Lives, the podcast that uncoves the powerful, untold stories of everyday people. The real stories you don't always hear, but ones that deserve to be told. I'm your host, Kelsey Billingsley. In each episode, we'll explore journeys of growth, resilience, and transformation. Conversations with guests who have faced challenges, embraced change, and discovered new purpose along the way. Through their stories, you'll find inspiration, hope, and a reminder that every life has a story worth telling. Let's dive into this next unspoken life. Today's conversation came through a mutual friend who reached out and basically said, you need to talk to Holiday. Her story needs to be shared. And after learning more about her journey, I completely understood why. Today I'm sitting down with Holiday Zimmerman, founder and CEO of The Hub OC, an organization serving people experiencing homelessness and hardship throughout Orange County, California. But what makes her story so compelling isn't just what exists today. Behind it all was a season where life was taking some unexpected turns and opportunities just kept appearing, even when she wasn't looking for them, leaving her with the decision of whether or not to say yes and step into something she never originally planned for herself. I think this conversation is going to resonate with a lot of people, especially anyone who has ever felt pulled towards something unexpected, uncertain, or bigger than themselves, and wondered what it would look like to actually say yes. So I'm really excited to get into all of it today. And holiday, um, I just want to thank you so much for taking the time to meet with me. I'm really looking forward to this. So I'd love if we could just start. I know I did an intro, but maybe we could just start with you, you know, sharing a little bit about who you are, what you do, what life looks like. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Um, well, I'm a pastor's wife and I have four kids. We adopted our oldest through foster care. She was 14 when she came into our house. And so um, and she's so rad. She's now 25. Mary just got married in December. Um, congratulations! I know, so fun. And then our oldest son, he got married in November. Oh my goodness. And he, I know, I know, and he's um 22. And then my next son is getting married in three weeks. That's I it sounds absolutely ridiculous. Um, and then my youngest daughter, she is a beach volleyball player at Hope University. So she is Yeah, I guess. So that those are my kids. That's kind of like just mostly my passion. And then I oversee this organization called the Hub OC that partners with our our church, but partners with the city to really solve unexpected problems for people that are in need. Um, we do after school care, we serve the homelessness, homeless, and we um we just respond when when the county or city needs us.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

That's amazing. I don't think I realized all of the weddings you're having in this this year. That's a lot. Right? I know. It's a lot, it's a lot. Maybe in a couple years you'll be telling me grandbaby here and grandbaby there. I know.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Oh my gosh. Yes, that's I know pressure. Um, no pressure, but like some pressure.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

No pressure.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

That's exciting. That's exciting. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that. I know when you and I first had a conversation, you told me a little that your story was a little bit about just saying yes. And that was so intriguing to me. I feel like this podcast, in a way, was a little bit about me saying yes into something I, you know, had no clue about. So maybe I was drawn to your story personally, but I also think um a lot of people that are listening could relate. Maybe they have a nudge or just things happening in their in their life. So I'd love to just go back to the beginning of when that season of your life started and just jump into the story from there. Sure, sure.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

Well, um, I grew up in the church. I'm a pastor's kid, and pretty much everybody in my family are pastors. So I grew up in the church and started working in the church at a young age, uh, was really passionate about social work and the church, and went to college across the street from my church and just really believed that the church is the hope of the world, but could solve all of the social uh justice issues that we we see today, as it was in Acts, you know, at the beginning of the church. So that was kind of a little bit of my history. And then in 2017, my dad passed away, and we moved unexpectedly. No, thank you. We moved unexpectedly and kind of took a sabbatical, and a variety of other things kind of just were taking place, a lot of changes in life, and I became depressed. And with a name like Holiday and being a pastor's kid, like I just never really experienced this kind of sadness. I've been sad, but I've never really experienced depression. And so I went and I mean, I was like not getting out of bed, like just struggling to like the typical signs of major depression. And so we went to therapists and psychiatrists and just really took that on. And one of the biggest kind of things that took place with my dad passing away was a very sudden kind of thing, is you know, just kind of sat in the idea of like, oh, what is depression? What do I do with this? So that was kind of where I was at. Okay, not in the place of yeah, not really moving forward in like, oh, I have this great plan for my life. It was kind of completely the opposite, just really in a bad state.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Um, sorry, I know I'm interrupting the story, but I may ask this before. Your name holiday, is there a story behind that? Do you want to share it? Yeah, no, sure, sure.

SPEAKER_01 6:05

No, yeah, there's no story behind my name holiday. It was just my mom said when she saw me, she was like, This is a holiday.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

That's the story. Oh, that's cute. That is a story, and it's a really cute story. Yeah, that's all we got. Fits you. Okay, we can get back to the other story now.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Yeah, yeah. So found out that when my dad passed away, I guess that he had just finished up the paperwork for a nonprofit. And when he passed away, all the paperwork like came to his door, and the the his good best friend was one of the board members, and they kind of just didn't know what to do with this nonprofit now that my dad was gone. And so during kind of where I was at, depression-wise, they called me and said, Hey, we'd love to give you this nonprofit. It has no money in it, it's just a 501c3 to do good and bring change to the world. That was the mission statement. But we are either going to shut it down or like give it to his daughter, you. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I do not want a nonprofit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

And I'm so struggling in this moment to even get out of bed. And now this plops in your lap.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

100%. An interesting fun fact is that the one thing during kind of where my sadness and depression is uh Romans 8, 28 was the verse that God just kept bringing to mind. And you know, that He will take anything and make it good, basically, just to summarize it. That um for the good of those that love him, He will work on our behalf, even if it's evil. And so I was clinging to that. And a year later, I looked back in my notes and it was August 8th, 28th, that um I met with the board for them to give me the nonprofit. So I just thought that was so interesting that God really does, he's so specific. He cares about numbers and dates, and um he knew I was clinging to that verse, and he happened to give me this nonprofit I did not want on August 8th, 28th. That's really that's really cool. So cool. So that just kind of sat there, and then our friend called us who was struggling with a brain, he just got diagnosed with a brain tumor, and he was a senior pastor of a church in Orange, and he asked my husband and I to step in while he was getting chemo and um surgery. And so we did, and so we left to go to Orange, and I have this nonprofit that I shelved. And so one of the things that our church did is we decided to do kind of a big outreach event and kind of serve the city as one of the things we did when we kind of took on the church because their mission statement was in the city for the city. So we're like, oh, cool, let's do a fun outreach event. So we did that, and we happened to partner with a partner called the Youth Centers of Orange, and they were doing after school care and summer care and really all day care for kids living below the poverty line and foster kids. And um we ran a big event for them. And at that event, one of the board members asked to meet with me, and we ended up talking, and he basically said, the youth centers is really struggling and it needs a nonprofit to kind of take it over because it was just a foundation and said, Do you happen to have a nonprofit? Um no, right? No, exactly. I was like, I am gonna lie to this guy, but I decided not to lie. Yeah, and I said, Let me explain. I I know this is he's like, I know this is out of the blue. He's like, this doesn't make sense, but I just felt like I'm supposed to ask you that. I said, Well, I don't really have a nonprofit, like it's it has no money in it, it's just a 501c3. And he said, This sounds perfect, don't you think? And I was like, not really. So it was one of those Yes, exactly, Kelsey. It was one of those moments where I I had to just decide, like complete surrender. And it was just this really interesting moment. I remember, I remember kind of just thinking like, God, if you want me to do this, if this is you, you know the state that I'm in. I'm not in a good state. There is no way I feel like I have at all the skill to do this. I feel completely overwhelmed. But this feels very, you know, it feels like a God thing. So if you want me to do this, God, you're gonna have to completely step in and show me. So that's kind of how the whole thing began.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

That's wild. Um, yeah. I think you you also mentioned before something about, and maybe you're getting to this, but money. There was something about so okay, maybe you're getting that part of the story. Maybe I'm jumping ahead.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. That's exactly kind of when I said kind of God, you're gonna have to provide. It was one of those moments where I knew I didn't want to fundraise. I wasn't really at a great state to do that. I knew that if we took this on, it was gonna be a very big endeavor. They were struggling. That's why they needed us to take on. We had no funding. So that was kind of my first thing. I was like, okay, God, I don't want to fundraise. If you want me to do this, you're going to have to randomly bring me enough money to sustain the staff and to keep us going and just prove like this is what you want. And randomly, out of the blue, a friend called me who worked for a company that was doing kind of like a match, like a benevity program where they would match if they gave, then the company would match it. Right. And they absolutely randomly asked if I had a nonprofit. But I don't know why. Again, everybody was asking me these questions. But and I said randomly, this is so crazy. And I told her the story. I said, We just I just said yes to this program that's helping kids below the poverty line, foster kids, and we need funding. And her match was exactly the amount of funding that we needed to be able to sustain. Yeah, it was wild. So yeah, yeah. So that was kind of the beginning of the most incredibly crazy journey that happened in 2020. And every single year, and sometimes in the middle of the year, God would just do these wild asks. And I started to find a pattern of like, okay, God, I think what you want for me is just complete surrender, complete yes, complete bravery. It was just that. I think that's what he wanted from me.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

So yeah, that's what the ride has been on, Kelsey. I love the part of like the exact amount of money, just these signs that keep showing up in front of you. I'm curious, did you ever have a moment where you said no, but then you kept pushing? Like, do you remember any any times like that? Yeah. So our next project. So we started this project.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

We said yes to the youth centers. And the youth centers was also a partnership with the city of Orange. They needed after school care. The youth centers of Orange was the after-school care, but it was running out of funding. It didn't have a 501c3. It was kind of just stepping in to meet the needs. So when we took it over and we became the nonprofit, the city was like, hey, now you're partnering with us, like when we have an issue. So we became, it was fun because we just became good friends. We were the city employees, our employees. We just became great friends. We we were trying to solve this problem together. It happened to be also COVID. So we had to kind of pivot, you know, find ways for us to say yes in wild circumstances. One of those was, you know, all the city community centers had to shut down. So they didn't have places for these kids during COVID. And so these kids couldn't even go to school. They didn't have access to Wi-Fi in their homes, so they had no access to school. So the city knew we took over the youth centers, and they said, Do you know a place that would allow us to bring all these kids? I said, You know, I know a guy who's running a church. So I called my husband and said, We need to open up our church to 200 kids like tomorrow. And of course he said yes. And our church became uh the place where we ran the youth centers. Wow. We did that for almost two years because COVID really lasted quite a long time. School didn't really open for another year, and then there was kind of just the um aftermath of that. So yeah, that became a partnership. But going back to a question of when I said no, is the city kind of approached me to solve homelessness? And I said no. Like I was like, there's no way. They were in a pickle, there was a big homeless issue that they were facing. The city was facing a lawsuit with the federal judge, and they were like, Hey, can you guys step in and run from a homeless site? And I was like, that just sounds completely overwhelming. There's no way we can do that. Sounded too messy. Um, so I said no, probably four times to the city, and then they called me um back and literally were begging, please, like, we'll do whatever it takes. So I said yes, but that was kind of the no, no experience. But one of those things, Kelsey, is like, I think I found that I kept praying, God, if you really want me to do this, circle them back around. And I said no four times. Yeah. When they finally circled back, I was like, okay, I guess I'm supposed to say yes. And then um, it's kind of been a theme that we we've been known, our nonprofits have been known as people who say yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

So yeah. Well, and I do feel like just in my own personal experience, there are times where God wants us to say no. So I think what you were doing, if you know, like have them come back, I think that's smart and and fair to do because it could be too much.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Absolutely. And the good thing about God is like he's so caring and loving, we're not gonna miss it. Like if he really wants us to do something, unless we're just being flat out, like defiant, which that wasn't necessarily my heart. I mean, I was saying no, which is somewhat fine. But my heart was like, God, I truly don't feel like I can do this. If you really want me to do this, you're gonna have to like circle this back four times, I guess. But um, but he's he's just he's just so filled with grace that you know he I remind my myself of this often and and people around me who are just facing hard things. I'm like, you know, I don't think he's gonna let us miss it. Like, he'll bring it around if we're scared or we're not sure. I just feel like we're supposed to follow the peace. And if we don't feel peace and we say no, like that, you know, but we're surrendered enough. God will bring it around. He's not. I remember when I was in my therapy and my pastoral counselor was like, he basically was saying, God's will is not his feeding bullet. It's not like it just goes by and it's like, oh my gosh, I missed it. It's not like that, it's like he gives you moments and he he's so gentle with us. He's a good dad. So he's like, Okay, I don't think she maybe she didn't hear me the first time, or you know, let me bring this around.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Or yeah, let me bring this up. I like looking at it that way. That's that's a really good perspective because I I do think sometimes I think in this fast-paced world, we probably think, oh no, what if I missed what I was called to do? Totally. And I yeah, that's encouragement of nope, you can still do it.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

He's still oh my gosh, he's so good to us. Like, I've just been around as I'm 51, and I've been around so long that he's like he just circles back. I've watched people completely even out of defiance, and you know, and still God is like our calling cannot be revoked. What he's put on our life, it cannot be revoked. He says that, and so so comforting, like that is the purpose for our life, he will make sure we get to do it as long as we're like, okay, all right, I want to do your will, God.

SPEAKER_00 17:57

Yeah, I love that. I like that. I wanted to ask you. So, I mean, I used to live in Orange County. I know lots of people know of Orange County or live there, and usually I feel like when you think of that, you think of a very nice area, lots of money, you know, people are doing well. And I was curious if you could share a little bit about like what you actually see there. You I think you said 200 homeless children during COVID needed a place to go. So, I mean, the stories alone that you probably hear or see, it has to be heartbreaking. But can you share a little bit about what it actually looks like for those people?

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Well, yes, we do. Orange County is beautiful, but there's a lot of poverty. Some of that's working poor, and we don't have affordable housing in Orange County. And so a lot of them are forced to live in their cars or they're forced to live in motels that are very run down because they can't catch up, right? You can't get the first and last month, you can't qualify because you don't have this large amount. Some in your in your bank account to be able to get into these apartments or whatnot. And so you're forced to live in these motels. And like I said, they're very, very um run down, lots of poverty, lots of crime. Our working poor tend to live, we we call them motel families. And there's a lot of pockets of motel families and places where families are residing in motels, or they're living in their cars, or they're stacked inside, you know, three to four families in one tiny apartment, people living in their in garages, families living in one room because they're renting a room that is super expensive. So that's the poverty of the working poor. And then, of course, there's homeless and homelessness. Um, because of that, it's hard to find places, and then there's addiction and mental health issues and access to a lot of drugs, um, which causes addiction issues to flourish and causes people to get into um tough situations. We have one of the highest in Orange County, the highest human trafficking um issues um because of the wealth. Um so we have high-end human trafficking and we have low-end human trafficking. We have the whole scale, and we we are known for that. Um, we're becoming even more known for that. We work with, like I said, we have a variety of programs. One of our programs is called the Hub Resource Center, and that services up to 200 people a day. We're the only walk-up service. So we work with human trafficking victims, and we see just awful, awful situations. Money brings access for people to do whatever they want. And so with that comes a lot of crime and then causes people to just be forced into some really hard situations. That's horrible. That's horrible. I mean, like one of the craziest things is we work with a lot of foster kids that have aged out of the system. The statistics say between 70 to 90 percent of our human trafficking victims are foster kids. Like that is what we deal with. And so when they age out of the system, I've raised four kids who are in that, you know, 18 and above. There's no way even my kids would have been fine on their own at age 18. Oh, yeah. So throw a foster kid out on their own with literally no resources. There's not much they can do. They're surviving. And so we just see that we're trying to be more preventative enough that we have like our after-school programs and all of that, but we're seeing it on the other end. So that's kind of a mixture of what Orange County faces in our poverty.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Thank you for listening to part one of this conversation. Next week, we'll continue the story in part two. Here's a preview of what's to come.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

And I think what I learned that is that when you're hit depression, when you go through something really hard, you're not thinking straight. And you need some other people alongside you to say, okay, this is what you have to do every day. And so I think what was helpful is people around me were like, you're not thinking straight. I'm gonna trust these people. I think what I learned through all of it is like, just do what people tell you. If I would have said no to any one of those things, I would have missed out, you know, on like the adventure God had for me.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

That's it for this episode of Unspoken Lives. If today's story moved you, inspired you, or made you reflect on your own journey, hit that subscribe button so you don't miss the next powerful conversation. I'm always on the lookout for new guests. If you know someone with a story that deserves to be shared, I'd love to hear from you. Check the show notes for contact details and make sure to follow along on social media at Unspoken Lives Podcast. Until next time, keep listening, keep sharing, and remember, every life has a story worth telling.