Weekly Update
Our staff just tackled another busy week here at the office:
- At Tuesday’s staff meeting we discussed survivor updates, planned an open house event for volunteers during April’s Volunteer Appreciation Week, got some important dates for future events, and discussed new ideas to make us a more efficient team.We were also happy to hear that starting in May, Shelia will become the Director of Survivor Services and will be a full time staff member here at ESTN! We know she will do a terrific job (because she already does) and can’t wait to see how our direct services team will grow!
- We were happy to have one of our survivors in the office pretty often this week. She worked to fill out papers for her new job, get necessary resources, and she even just came here for an afternoon after being upset and stressed in order to just talk and be in a loving environment. We were also happy to hear Jennifer report that for the first time in her life, our little survivor no longer has a desire to use drugs and has even stopped smoking.
- We also had visits from Tina McLane and her family as well as our Spring Hill group leader, Bucky Elliott, who dropped off t-shirt funds from a recent women’s conference at which they had an ESTN booth set up. The McLane’s were able to see the finished product of our therapy room. They played an important part in the initial transformation, Bucky was finally able to meet our Volunteer Manager, Angela!
- Shelia and Jennifer brought one of our newer 15-year old survivors to the office after a day of shopping to get her everything she needs for moving into her new foster home. But, we couldn’t let her leave the office without doing a little extra shopping through our survivor supplies as well.
- Yvette worked this week to find survivors who will be able to participate in two upcoming partnerships here at our offices. We will be working with Jobs for Life to help prepare some of our women with job readiness skills and career planning. We will also have two girls working with t-615 to make jewelry, as part of a paid internship.
- Thursday our staff finally got to meet on of our young juveniles whom we’ve worked with for almost a year now. She and her mom stopped by to see the office, meet the staff, and then our direct services team took them out to lunch at Thistle Farms. We also let her go shopping through our survivor supplies here at the office. As she was leaving she said, “This feels like Christmas all over again!”
- Angela and Karen were busy preparing for our volunteer training taking place this Saturday, while Derri was busy rehearsing for the TEDx Talks this Saturday as well. Both will be great!
- We had a special surprise by volunteer extraordinaire, Jill Rutter, who is doing a presentation for us on Monday. She gathered some necessary supplies but Angela and I also enjoyed just catching up with her and laughing.
- We are also thankful for our Girl Scout, Hannah Kersey, whose mother and brother picked up some chairs from our office to refurbish over the weekend.