Mary Boyles has a story to tell. A story that is constantly evolving, with the next chapter a big unknown as she leaves the job she’s held for nearly six years.
Boyles, the executive director of The Shepherd’s House, is retiring from the post she took in September 2015. In talking about her time at the agency — she had served on the board of directors prior to becoming the executive director — she constantly deflects credit to her staff, to businesses and individuals in the community who have supported the homeless shelter’s mission, and to agencies with whom she’s been able to partner.
But in the end, her time there is a story — her story, and the stories of the countless individuals who have come into the doors homeless, often jobless, sometimes suffering from addiction or mental illness, who have now gotten on their feet, living on their own, working, even raising families, as productive, self-reliant members of the community.
Well, maybe not countless individuals, because the agency does have the numbers. Since its doors opened in 2003, more than 2,500 individuals have spent time there, receiving a cumulative total of 64,000 shelter nights and 210,000 meals. Some might find those numbers surprising, that homelessness would be that big of a problem in a small town such as Mount Airy — it is, afterall, Mayberry.
More disturbing, however, is how demand for the homeless shelter’s ministry has grown, with little in the way of means to meet that demand. Over the past five years, Boyles said the Shepherd’s House has turned away 3,000 people, mostly for lack of space. That will be at least partially remedied soon when construction on a much larger shelter on Spring Street is completed.
While the official capital campaign to raise money for the shelter got underway several years ago, it really started to take off more than five years ago, when Boyles first came onboard and realized the precarious financial situation of the Shepherd’s House. Its balance sheet, an accounting of its cash on hand, assets, everything of monetary value, stood at just $32,000.
She wrote a grant application shortly thereafter, in 2016, seeking money from the State Employees Credit Union Foundation to help with the new building. It was rejected. Part of the reason was, Boyles freely says, is her inexperience with grant applications. “I didn’t know how to write grants,” she said recently in reflecting on her time there. “My first couple were duds.”
She also was fighting a losing battle in that foundations handing out grants generally award them to organizations which have a solid financial footing, that show they can be self-sufficient even without the grant.
“We didn’t have sustainability,” Boyles said. “We didn’t have an endowment.”
She credits two individuals for helping her understand how to tackle that handicap — Lilnette Phillips, of the local branch of the State Employees Credit Union, and Jamma Campbell, executive director of the foundation.
“Lilnette Phillips took me in her office, she got the director of the foundation on the phone, they walked me through exactly what I needed to do. Lilnette Phillips was really a huge role model for me to write grants, pushing me, encouraging me, telling me not to give up.”
That encouragement took hold, and in the next round of grant applications Boyles was able to secure $500,000 from the foundation. Since that time, the agency’s financials have improved, its ability to reach those in the community who are among the most vulnerable has grown, and its balance sheet is strong — Boyles said it stands at $2.1 million.
While the numbers tell a story, it’s only part of the story.
Another part is one of the clients who walked in the door after Boyles took the job. It was a face she remembered.
“I had a friend I’d gone to college with, played softball with together,” she said during an interview last summer. “I’d never known what happened to her.”
She learned quickly, when that old friend walked in the door, homeless, struggling with a 30-year addiction.
“I knew when she was in college she had a good life. What causes people to go down that path?” she asked at that time.
Last week, she said most people who are homeless are far different than most others think, with some trauma being the tipping point in their lives that eventually put them on the streets. In her friend’s case, it was the loss of both of her parents within a year, which sent her into a downward spiral that eventually led to substance abuse and homelessness over the course of 30 years.
“Knowing her, seeing her, learning her story showed me…taught me what homelessness really is.”
Boyles took her friend in, walked her through the program there at Shepherd’s House, which includes giving emotional support, getting clients a job, getting them help for any substance abuse or mental health issues, and working with clients to get them back on their feet, living on their own.
For Boyle’s friend, the program worked to perfection, and now she lives in Winston-Salem, and has spoken many times to high school groups, in courts, and elsewhere, trying to steer people away from drugs and to help those with addictions to see reclaiming their lives is possible.
It’s stories like that — and other tales, histories of clients and former clients that the Shepherd’s House has shared repeatedly over the years that has driven local businesses, individuals, and agencies to become involved, either as volunteers, donors, or partner agencies.
And while Boyles will no longer be at the helm of the agency, she said she hopes local residents will continue to support the ministry.
“People think the homeless are just a bunch of drug addicts, or are lazy…people might see them smoking and say ‘if they’re homeless how can they afford cigarettes.”
She said the homeless are just like anyone else, except some traumatic experience, or experiences, has led them down a path that often includes addiction, or mental illness, or both. And sometimes it takes a caring group of people, working with a structured agency such as the Shepherd’s House, to get those folks back on their feet.
Boyles could trumpet many accolades during her time there — the financial strength of the ministry, construction of the new shelter, strong bonds grown with dozens of local agencies and businesses, and generally making the Shepherd’s House a much better known entity in the community, she really has little to say about herself.
Instead, she says her hope is that her work there is remembered in the stories of the clients who came through those doors, and that those stories inspire the community to continue to support the Shepherd’s House, and inspire those in need to make their way to the homeless shelter, to build their own self-reclamation story.
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com