The Poverty Money Can’t Fix

Brandon Andres Green, host of Good Neighbor Podcast Tulsa, sits down with Dree Hogue, executive director of Stand in the Gap Ministries, to talk about the kind of poverty that cannot be automated, outsourced, or solved with a check: relational poverty.

Dree shares how Stand in the Gap Ministries connects people in need with people who care through small-group mentorship and long-term support. Their work serves at-risk youth, widows, and women coming out of incarceration by surrounding them with steady, healthy relationships that stay.

This conversation gets practical quickly. Dree explains how Life Launch pairs young adults, often connected to the foster care system, with trauma-informed mentors who walk with them for a full year. She also shares how their widow support groups help fight isolation during grief, and why the first months after losing a spouse can be so dangerous and lonely.

You’ll also hear about Women in Transition, a prison reentry program that begins inside the facility with a 21-week course, continues through reentry counseling, and wraps women with mentor teams as they rebuild life after incarceration. Dree shares why breaking cycles of trauma, incarceration, and loneliness starts with dignity, wisdom, and consistent community.

If you care about mentorship, trauma-informed ministry, prison reentry, widow care, foster care, or helping people rebuild with real support, this conversation gives you a powerful look at what happens when the system lets go and the right people step in.

Some wounds do not need a program first. They need people who stay.

Transcript

Welcome To Good Neighbor Podcast

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Brandon Andris Green.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast Live. What happens when the system is done with someone, but real life is just beginning. For women coming out of incarceration, widows walking through loss, and young adults coming from hard places. Stand in the gap ministries helps surround people when something with something many of them have never had, such as steady, healthy, committed relationships. So today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, Dre Hogue with Stand in the Gap Ministries. Dre, how's it going?

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Good. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

Well, we're so excited to learn all about you and Stand in the Gap Ministries. And how your team really helps people move from isolation into support, stability, and hope. Will you tell us a little bit about Stand in the Gap Ministries and the heart behind your work?

The Mission Behind Stand In The Gap

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Absolutely. So our mission is very simple. We exist to connect people in need with people who care. And we do that through a model of small group mentorship and fellowship. And you've already mentioned, but we focus on three vulnerable populations. So at-risk youth, widows, and women who've experienced incarceration. So we um, you know, the there's an epidemic of relational poverty in the United States where people feel a pseudo-sense of connection, but they don't have healthy, truly healthy connection that can offer them so much healing and wholeness and health. And so we work to do that.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

Your ministry talks about connecting people in need with people who care. What does that actually look like in real life?

Life Launch Mentors For At Risk Youth

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Yeah, in our three programs. So our three programs are Life Launch, Stand in the Gap for Widows, and Women in Transition, which is our ministry to women who've experienced incarceration. It looks a little bit different in all three of them. So I'll kind of break it out. The basis is a form of small group mentorship and fellowship, but with Life Launch with our at-risk youth, um, we take um we're we're connected with organizations who are connected with those at-risk youth who make a referral to us. And then we gather two or three mentors around that young young adult, 16 to 25 years old. Um, many of them have been in the foster care system at some point. All of them lack healthy adult relationships. So what I would refer to is functionally orphaned. Um and so this small group of mentors commits to one year of journeying with them and spending about eight hours a month with them. And it's that simple. But uh for most of them, it's the first time they have somebody in their life who's not paid to take care of them. Um they get connected to the network of people those people are connected to, you know, um, whether it's jobs, connect connection for jobs, or just the wisdom that they've gleaned in their own life, they've got that resource now. And so it's a very simple model and yet complex because humans, as you know, are complex.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

So just a little.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Yeah, just a little. So we see um the majority, the overwhelming majority of those young adults either graduate from high school or achieve their GED while they're in our program. Um, and that in and of itself makes a huge economic impact um, given that they can then they're more likely to go obtain job training, get a job, be a taxpaying citizen, all of that. But even more so than that, they learn what a healthy relationship looks like. Our mentors are are um they go through a trauma training. Our training is trauma-informed, that's what I'll say. So they understand that um while they're meeting this young adult where they're at, they also um are the ones that are going to teach them about healthy boundaries. And you know, 2 a.m. in the morning is not an appropriate time to call me. So I will talk to you again at 9 a.m., you know. Um, but it's as simple as like one of one of our mentees showed up with like broken glasses, like his glasses were like, you know, paper clips together or something. And he just didn't know what steps to take to get new glasses. And one of his mentors happened to be the owner of uh Vision Center, and so um, so it's as simple as that, you know. They any of us when we were 18 didn't know how to navigate the big wide world, and and so these young adults just have that help. So that's that model.

Widows Need Connection After Loss

SPEAKER_00 5:26

Our widows model um is different, so we connect with churches. We're actually in 27 states and seven. Oh my goodness. Yeah, so we're international. If you come into our office, clocks up in the wall with all the time zones that we serve. But um widows, you know, it's interesting when uh when a when a spouse when when someone experienced uh the loss of a spouse, their mortality rate increases 41% in the first six months of that. The loneliness is real, and um everything from just you know financial literacy to just dealing with your spouse's clothes that were left behind, you know, the simple things, there's it's just greatly isolating. And so um uh we equip churches and local organizations to serve those widows, and we've got a toolkit that provides for them different small group studies and different social events that they can do, how to do a car care clinic, um, all manner of things, frozen meal program, you know. And so we've got leaders, we have 114 leaders across all of those places that drive those groups. And so we we reach, um, I think this year we're gonna reach about 15,000 widows this year. We have a conference coming up to serve them. People are coming in from all over the United States. Um, it's gonna be here in Jinx at First Baptist Jinx. We expect about 400 women to come in for that. So that's our widows, that's how we serve them.

Women In Transition From Prison To Home

SPEAKER_00 7:09

And then our women in transition um program is the women who've experienced incarceration. So it's actually three-tiered. Our team goes into prison, they're in they're in Eddie Warrior facility today, and we have a 21-week course that the women go through and they opt into it. We have about 200 women every course between Eddie Warrior and Mabel Bassett, and our team builds relationships with them and they learn everything from healthy relational boundaries to financial literacy to um, you know, relational skills, job, you know, how to interview, those types of things. Um, they learn about taking off the masks that they've worn in their brokenness and they begin to heal. And so that is a really powerful program and our really first relational connection with them. The second tier of that is that we provide re-entry counseling for the women who are are looking at parole or looking at release, and so we try and help them find beds, find stable housing on the free side. Um, many of them, most of them, about 80% of them, have children somewhere. And um, it's a really powerful thing for both the children and the women if they can be restored back relationally. Not all of them are going to be reunified for with custody, but just the restoration of relationship is important. So we try and find them a bed where their kids are and we partner with transition homes across the state to be able to do that. Then once they're in the transition home and they have stable housing for a year, we wrap around them with mentor teams, much like the Life Launch program, where they have two or three mentors committed to walk with them for a year while they're in that transition period. So I could tell you endless stories about that, but the power of connection they didn't land in prison because of nothing, you know. So having healthy relationships on the on the outside right off the bat is so powerful for life change and transformation, not just for them, but the generations coming after them. Many of them are third and fourth generation um women who've experienced incarceration. So to break that cycle, um, healthy social support is the the key to that. So we also try with organizations that have job training programs and things like that. So She Bruce and Tulsa is one of one of our I love She Bruce. Yeah, so Rhonda Baer, who's the executive director of She Bruce, is our women in transition program manager. So she's worked for us for 15 years.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

She Bruce kind of grew out of her ministry of that. So we love what they do and love Rhonda, and she's a force. I'll tell you, when someone who's experienced incarceration decides to commit to transformation, there's no stopping them. Like they're a force. So it's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

So I'm so curious, how did Dree get involved in this?

Dre Hogue’s Story Of Mentorship

SPEAKER_01 10:30

How did you get started in this role in the first place?

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Yeah, that's a great question. So I'm a Tulsa native. For the most part, I was I grew up here. Um, but I was born the daughter of a drug addict. My father was a drug addict, and my mom was severely abused um by him. And so my very first memories are that um she had a you know fractured skull and broken ribs, and um, we were literally um my grandpa came to Houston in the middle of the night and kind of rescued us and brought us back to Tulsa. We changed our last name. I mean, that that's what I came came out of. And um, when I was a teenager, um, mentorship radically changed my life. Radically. Um, I was just on a different trajectory altogether, and so um I my youth pastor and his wife, Jonathan and Susie Weibel, mentored me and um gave me a safe place to land and I learned how to live differently. And um so I didn't know then that I was being prepared for this now, you know, that was many years ago, and I've been a gypsy of jobs. I I was a I've got a 26-year-old daughter, a 21-year-old daughter, and a 13-year-old son, and I did a lot of mom jobs for a lot of years. Um, but all of that really helped me discover in part, you know, in the 80s, we didn't talk about trauma. Um, you know, you just rub some dirt on it and moved on, you know. So as I as I um it my husband and I have always been in some form of ministry, and um, you know, the our our faith in has radically changed our lives. And so um that rescue of Jesus is is very real to me. And so um, so anyway, as I became became aware of my own trauma, I had to kind of dig in and heal because I was raising these other humans, right? And I want my trauma to define them, so I had to I had to figure out some wholeness for myself. And I've always had wonderful mentors, I've always, always relied on that. And um, I became, I kind of found my advocate voice when I was serving as children's pastor at Believers Church and um many years ago, and and just really wanted the church to become trauma-informed so that instead of a behavior economy, we were functioning on an economy of grace like we're called to do in Jesus. And so um, so out of that, I became um connected with another ministry called 111 project, um, led by Chris Campbell. And I worked under him for many years and became connected with Stand in the Gap. And I've always loved what Stand in the Gap did because it was so close to my own story. And so, anyway, the opportunity opened up and I was able to step over as executive director, and I see a lot of fulfillment of a lot of years of what the Lord was sowing into my own life now being able to bear fruit in this season and in this ministry. So I have my own lived testimony, um, stories that you know no one would believe if you knew me, you know, happily married for 28 years, and I've got three beautiful, wonderful children. But there was a lot of survival in the midst of my getting to where I'm at.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

So amen.

How To Help Without Fear

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Amen. So a lot of people, I say, um, you know, want to help in their own way, but don't always know how to help wisely. What do you wish maybe churches, families, or simply just community members better understood about supporting someone coming out of incarceration, grief, or maybe even just a hard place?

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Yeah. Well, I've several things to say about this, but the first is um don't overcomplicate it. So it can be very simple. Um, and it just starts with one step, you know, just take one step forward. The cross is the great denominator. So we're all the same at the foot of the cross. There's nothing different about the people we serve than about us who are serving, right? There's truly our life experiences are different, but the things that we need to overcome are similar. Um, and so, you know, I am a firm believer that everyone can do something, whether it's, you know, providing for, you know, we we had a recent young adult who needed some boots. Provide those boots, right? That's simple. Um and maybe your maybe the next step for you would be to step in relationally and do that. I think our mentors would all tell you that they learn more than they ever expected to learn from their mentee, that it's not just a one-way thing, it's a two-way thing. Um, it is so clear in scripture that the church is called to serve the most vulnerable. There is no doubt about it. And James 127 is the verse that you know is referred to so often that pure and undefiled religion is that we serve the widow and the orphan in their distress. It's the scripture is not saying if you're called to do that, do that. It's a mandate for all of us, and so then it's just finding what what is the gift I carry that I can put back in to that. And I don't know that everyone's called to foster care, not everyone's called to mentor, but there are a lot of ways you can engage and involve, and it might just be supporting one of the ministries that does that work.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

So yeah, everyone's called to something.

SPEAKER_00 16:43

That's right. Yeah, that's great. So I um am passionate about looking at other humans with dignity and care. Um, I think, you know, um we put a lot of assumptions on on people who have certain circumstances, you know, like when we see the homeless man at 71st and 169, what what are the assumptions that come into your head about that person? Um, and I would just encourage people to to lay those aside. Some of that is wisdom, but there's a fine, my my friend Roger Nicks has said there's a fine line between wisdom and fear. So, so determine what's wise about this opinion and what's fear-driven. Um I would say that none of us who've been in a hard place got there without the work of broken relationship around us. So consider that. You know, consider what what is the thing that that broke this person? Um, I I don't know that anybody just wakes up, you know, ready to become a drug addict and and you know, commit robbery or even murder. Um the women I know that have experienced incarceration are probably the ones that have the worst assumptions made about them. Um, but the I mean, if it's not a hundred percent of women, it's very close, have suffered sexual abuse, mental abuse, physical abuse. Um, and they're still responsible for their own actions, right? They're they're facing the consequences of those. But what happens if the the weight of the human relationships that broke them is balanced by the gift of human relationships that can bring healing? So look at it differently, right? Look at it as they just haven't found their healthy connections yet, you know. Um, the the most complicated part would be mental illness. And I think um that is something that that um it's like somebody having an invisible broken leg, right? Or missing a limb that's just invisible. And so when you shift your expectations around their capabilities of doing something, then it shifts the whole relational component, right? So I don't expect somebody without a leg to run a normal marathon, right? Um and so if you apply that same principle to mental illness, then you can better relate to that person by having shifted your expectations. And so that's a really complicated answer, but you know, human to human, um I am no better than any of the people we serve. And um, we're all the we all need the rescue Jesus. That's what I would say, and we all need healthy relational connection, and so we can pour out of what we've been given. And I would encourage everyone to consider how they could do that.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

Amen.

Volunteer Donate And Widows Conference

SPEAKER_01 20:16

And how can listeners learn more, volunteer, donate, and simply just try to get involved with Stand in the Gap ministries?

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Yeah, the first thing to do is go to our website and it's standinthegap.org. Um, and you can check out our different ministries. Um, and there's volunteer applications right there on the websites with the different programs. So if you want to mentor, we have those opportunities. If you know of a widow that you want to help care for, reach out and we'll get you connected with ways to do that. Um, we also have our widows conference October 8th and 9th at First Baptist Jinx. So invite the widows that you know. I think everyone has a widow in their life. Invite them, they'll find connection and care there in a really powerful way. Um, and then if you want to support what we do financially, we are, we would love for you to consider monthly giving to be a bridge builder partner with us. Um, that provides such a foundation for us to be able to do the work we do on a consistent basis. So there are more people to care for out there. And we we, in order for us to do that, in order for us to scale to care for those people, we need financial support. So all of those things can be found on our website at standinthegap.org.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

That's great. Well, Dre, I so appreciate you being on the show. I know you're a busy woman. I appreciate you taking the time. And we wish you and Stand in the Gap Ministries the best moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 21:50

Thank you, Brandon. I appreciate the opportunity to share and for your graciousness to listen to all the things I

Closing And Nominate A Business

SPEAKER_00 21:57

said.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

So thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gmptulsa.com. That's gmptulsa.com. Or call 918.