Samantha Metheny and Emily Ruth Perry discuss the three local nonprofits that Veritas Church partners with in Fayetteville, NC. Listen to this special episode on the Veritas Church podcast channel or read the transcript provided below to learn more!
0:01
Samantha, hi. My name is Samantha Metheny. I am the Director of Operations here at Veritas, and part of my job is to bring you communications. And so I'm sitting here in my dining room with Emily Ruth Perry, our deacon of local partners, and we are here to chat about the Veritas local partnerships. Emily Ruth, will you introduce yourself?
0:24
Yes, hey. I am Emily Ruth Perry. I am the deacon of local partners at Veritas. And for a job, I am the Director of Operations at inasmuch. So that is Fayetteville area operation inasmuch, which is a local nonprofit in Fayetteville.
0:40
Emily Ruth, how did you end up as our deacon of local partners?
0:45
Yes, so I started at Veritas just as a covenant partner A while back, and then in 2016 I came on staff as the part time Veritas kids director. I worked on staff for a number of years through many different roles, and finally I became the director of local community life. Yeah, you got it, yeah. So the director of community life, and as the director of community life, I oversaw community groups, local partners, and also global partners. And so, as I was kind of in a season where I was transitioning off of staff, those areas of my job were kind of dispersed. But I asked, Can I keep local partners and become a deacon in that role? Because I really have meaningful relationships with the organizations that we serve?
1:39
Yeah, and I think that it's safe to say that everyone involved at Veritas was very happy that you wanted to stay our deacon of local partners. So Emily Ruth, who are our three local partners? This is going to be a three part question, who are our three local partners? How did we establish relationships with them and what? What do each of them do?
1:59
Right? So our three local partners that we have tangible, meaningful relationships with. The first one is inasmuch, so operation inasmuch. The second one is Fayetteville area, Habitat for Humanity, and the third one is hand of hope, so with inasmuch. It is a local nonprofit that serves the homeless and people who are in extreme poverty. It does that a few different ways. The what it's, what it has been primarily known for over the years, is the breakfast ministry. So Monday through Friday, we serve breakfast to anyone and everyone, and it's family style. And that also opened the door for a number of other relief services, like sick call and glasses and hygiene closet, clothing closet, things like that. Over the years, the organization recognized that they wanted to do more, and so they created the the ABLE Life program, which became the Living Hope program, gotcha, that is a transitional housing facility that is actually a program that the guys work, where they're taking classes in spiritual development, life skills and also peer support, As well as some kind of trauma informed counseling classes. Okay, they also do work call in the afternoon, and they progress through the program. We ask them not to work at the first part of it, the last part of it, they are able to get jobs and then start saving money, and then move either out on their own or to houses that we own over on Frank Street. Okay, great.
3:38
So it's kind of starts out as a relief effort and then moves it graduates into what's the phrase? So
3:44
what we what we really focus on, is relief, recovery and restoration got it Yes. And so relief is kind of the first level of what most of us think of when we think of charity, okay, and then recovery and restoration are really kind of the long, hard work of long suffering with somebody being with them in relationship, trying to disciple, teach them skills, retrain them and a lot of different stuff and and really just be alongside with them. And that that's really a main thread through a lot all of our local partners, is that they are, they're in it for the long haul with people,
4:19
yeah, okay. Speaking of the other ones, yes, tell us about habitat. Yeah.
4:23
So, so Fayetteville area, Habitat for Humanity is our local branch of the National Organization. It's actually international for Habitat for Humanity, okay? And so a lot of the time when people think of habitat, they think that they build free homes and give them to people. That's that's not actually the reality. Okay, so, um, they are doing zero interest loans as well as financial classes for people to become first time homeowners. But they are. They're still paying a mortgage. They're still kind of going through all of the steps that come along with becoming a homeowner. So. And along with that, they need to do what's called sweat equity where they're they're volunteering either at the Habitat ReStore or at one of the habitat builds that they do so that they one can see the process of what goes into it, but then also so that they have some empowerment and ownership when it comes
5:17
to that kind of stuff. Okay, how did Veritas get involved with Habitat? Yeah. So we,
5:21
our initial connection with Habitat was through one of our our former covenant partners, John pomelo, okay, he worked for habitat for a really long time. He kind of was one of their Foreman project managers who oversaw and he he was a wonderful connection for us as far as as when we were doing these kind of on site projects, he was doing a lot of the volunteer training and stuff like that, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
5:50
And then the last local partner that we mentioned is hand of hope. What is? What does hand of hope do?
5:56
So hand of hope is a pregnancy support center that walks alongside women and really couples, if there are couples involved, seeking to wrestle with the challenges of what happens with an unexpected pregnancy. So they they kind of run the gamut everything from supplying needs as far as they have a baby boutique, but really predominate, predominantly what they do is they have classes. So really, yeah, parenting classes, skill building classes. They even do some level of financial stuff and and connecting people with resources. But they are primarily a relational kind of mentor organization. And by taking those classes, you earn what they call baby bucks. Baby bucks. And so the baby bucks are how people get items from the baby boutique. Got it, yeah,
6:55
okay, so it focuses a lot on relationship building education. So how did Veritas end up involved with hand of hope?
7:07
Yeah, so Veritas had an interest from the very beginning of getting involved with some sort of pregnancy Support Center. There was a different pregnancy Support Center in town that we were trying to form a relationship with but it was not working out for a number of different reasons. So with that in mind, I got connected with pregnancy support center out in Rayford called Alpha life, okay? And they are a wonderful pregnancy Support Center, and I strongly encourage anybody who's in Rayford to get connected with them. Yeah, for our context, we were just it was too far away. It was like an hour drive to their facility. So they're the ones who actually connected us with hand of hope, even prior to them getting a facility in Fayetteville. Yeah,
7:49
because they launched in Raleigh, yes, and then Fuquay Varina, I think
7:53
it's actually the opposite. I think they stopped or they started in Fuquay and then, and then Raleigh, and then came to Fayetteville. Okay, great. And, yeah, so they have a really wonderful model, because we recognized that pregnancy support centers can be a little spicy and dicey, sure. So Jacob and I took some time to really vet the organization and everybody who was on staff. We talked a lot about it because we wanted to make sure that this was a pregnancy support center that was very compassionate and loving towards the women who were kind of coming to these organizations. And that was one of the things that very much attracted us to hand of hope. It's very much a a woman centered understanding her context, understanding where she's coming from, and loving her in that situation. That's
8:44
great. Yeah, okay, yeah. Well, thank you for sharing that for anyone who's listening. If you are new here, you may not know that our vision is to love God, love people, and advance the gospel. And the mission of Veritas church is to be a church that's for the city, for the military and for the fame of Jesus. And so local partners is just one of the ways that we are able to partner with the Lord on mission here to be for the city, for the military and for the fame of Jesus, but practically. Emily Ruth, what does it look like to get involved with these organizations? Yeah. So
9:20
three kind of simple and low hanging fruit ways to get involved, the first of which pray for these organizations and pray for the populations that they serve. So each of these population, each of these organizations, serve people who would be considered kind of the poor in spirit, those who are kind of in need within organizations. So really, having a mind and a heart for people who are in need, and reaching out to the organizations and the leadership directly to get connected with them, to ask specifically, how can I be praying for you most? Of these organizations have newsletters that they send out on a on a pretty frequent basis that you can know what is happening within the organization, how you can be praying for them. So that's kind of the first way, the second way financially supporting them. So all of these organizations have methods and means to support either a one time donation or reoccurring so either monthly, or
10:23
I hear that the reoccurring donations are very helpful for 501, C, threes in this line of
10:28
work, yes, particularly, I mean, especially having moved on to staff at one of them seeing the need and the benefit of having, you know, stable income from donors, yeah, and it's unrestricted funds, so you can kind of do what is necessary with them and and really, I know a few different people have come up to me and asked for local partners, you know, how, how is the money spent? How do I know where my money's going? All of these organizations would be happy to kind of be transparent about that, because really, for most of us, I mean, I can speak for in as much the vast majority, I'd say 70 to 75% of our budget goes towards paying staff, okay, and that we're still all underpaid. That's really
11:17
but that's helpful to know, because without the people to do the work, the work cannot be done, right? So it is really important to be able to support and sustain a staff working at peak capacity, especially in this line of work. Okay, that's helpful. What about the volunteering aspect? Yeah,
11:37
involved, yeah, yeah. So that's really the third and it really kind of offers a various range of how you can get involved, everything from kind of one time drop ins, you know, for in as much we have the breakfast ministry that people are always welcome to come and serve breakfast. Hand of hope. People are always welcome to come and help sort the baby boutique and donate items, things like that, and habitat, you're always welcome to go and volunteer, either at their Habitat ReStore or in. You know, on one of their sites, they have websites, all of them have websites with opportunities for volunteering, okay, but that's that's You are always welcome to volunteer more, and anyone who is seeking to do more investment, the relational investment is key. Yeah, these, yeah, yeah, so, so, showing up on a routine basis, being involved with people's lives, that's how the change
12:37
actually helps, being warm and hospitable, yeah,
12:39
yeah. And just somebody that somebody, that someone can say, that person's in my corner, that person actually cares about me. That
12:47
person, yeah. Okay, so beyond praying, financial support and volunteering, what is your kind of large picture hope and prayer for our Veritas members who have a desire to make a real difference in Fayetteville.
13:05
Yeah, I think when it comes to the local partners, kind of ministry, my hope and prayer is that it can be a means primarily of education and shifting a mindset around involvement with the city and involvement with people just kind of being another thing that is on the to do list and checking boxes, and it really becoming a shifted mindset and a way of life and a heart posture. So I have led a equipping event around local partners and some kind of effective ways to help people. I'm hoping to do that again in this upcoming year, and I like to think of myself as a resource for anybody who has questions or needs things or needs connections when it comes to that kind of stuff. And then also just I'm hoping to be able to highlight ways that people are loving and serving within the city because it's happening. I mean, we know
14:06
and stories matter. Yeah, they really do, and they help us as, I don't know, listeners to to realize that things are happening here in Fayetteville, and Veritas church is is involved, but not as the end all be all. We're just happen to be able to partner with God and partner with other local organizations that are already doing great work here.
14:30
Yeah, yeah, very much so. And I think sometimes when we hear stories, it can, it can inspire, and then it can also make it accessible, yeah? Because I think sometimes we have this picture in our brain of the person who is out helping the least of these as Mother Teresa off in India, and it could never be us, yeah. But in reality, it is us. Yeah. It is us all the time, for sure, we are the hands and feet. And
14:56
when we hear about our friends doing it, it just helps us to. Know? Oh, I could do that. I could do that. I may not be able to do all of the things, but I could do one of the things, right? Yeah, that's helpful. Okay. Well. Emily Ruth, if anyone wants more information, how do they get a hold of you?
So my email is eruthperry@gmail.com
15:27
and my work email is Emily Ruth at inasmuch, faye.org Okay, and then you can always email life@veritasfayetteville.com and ask to be connected with absolutely anybody that you want to be connected with. I am happy to to do that. Okay. Well, thank you for your time. Thank you for kind of sharing the work that you do. Veritas, just so you know, our hope here is that we will be able to release an episode per month about local partners. Ideally, we'd be able to feature one and talk about the things that that local partner is doing and ways that you can get involved. If you liked this episode, please share it with your Fayetteville friends, like I said, you can always contact me at life@ Veritas fayetteville.com
16:22
or Samantha @ Veritas fayetteville .com and we'll see you next time bye.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai