October 3, 2023 • 17 mins
Sisters in Recovery co-founder Kathryn Curtice joins the Dana Tyson podcast to talk about their mission to provide safe, structured, and affordable residential facilities for women active in 12-step recovery from alcohol and drug addiction.
Website: https://sirhouse.org/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sirhouse2020
https://sunny99.iheart.com/featured/dana-and-jay-in-the-morning/
Website: https://sirhouse.org/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sirhouse2020
https://sunny99.iheart.com/featured/dana-and-jay-in-the-morning/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Every family in some way is affectedby drug or alcohol addiction. And there
are three houses. They are Sistersin Recovery sober Homes. Wait until you
hear the story of Catherine. She'smy guest on my Dana Tyson podcast.
And thank you so much Mattress Macfrom Gallery Furniture for always being such a
(00:20):
great sponsor. I met you beforeI heard you speak. I was invited
to this incredible luncheon. I hadno idea what I was in store for
and how you women would affect myheart. Sisters in Recovery or sir as.
You are the founder, the bosslady, the one who kicks these
(00:42):
ladies into gear. There's two ofus, myself and Sarah Bergman, and
we started the organization in two twenty. Tell us how this. You've got
quite a history that you shared withme, and that obviously prepared you for
how you were going to help somany other women. Yeah. So my
(01:03):
mom got sober in nineteen eighty fivewhen I was seventeen years old, and
three months later I moved out.So let's talk about did she become obnoxious
or very judgmental? No, itwas all of a sudden. She wanted
everyone to be sober, and youknow that that just didn't work for me.
I was seventeen. I've been doingwhat I wanted to do for a
(01:23):
long time, so you just can'tcome in and all of a sudden,
now there's rules. Yea. Yeah. So the whole time that she was
sober, she would women would cometo live with her from different detoxes and
that needed to get on their feet, like newly sober. And at one
time she had a house and everyroom was full of women and she didn't
(01:47):
have much sobriety either, and theyall just kind of got sober together.
And so I bounced in and outof this program for years. It took
me seventeen years to get one year. On November of this year, I'll
have twenty four years sober, andmy mom has thirty eight years sober.
So her example really kind of helpedshape what we wanted to do. There's
(02:08):
a women's d talks in Pasadena calledNew Hope Women's Center, and the women
can go there and stay for thirtydays free a charge, and then after
that, if they have space,they can become what's called a resident,
but they only have like three residentrooms, and I think there's three or
four girls in each room, andthey're not very big. They're small rooms.
(02:29):
So when we stepped off the board, one of the things that we
decided to try to do was toopen a sober living home. So we
leased the first one, which isin Pasadena. Don't give out the address
on air for the safety of thewomen, but it's located in Pasadena,
right in the heart of Pasadena.It was the people that owned it.
(02:51):
The woman was a psychiatrist and shehad retired, and so it was already
ready to go, had the parkinglot. It was good. So we
leased it in January twenty twenty andour first girl moved in in February.
Did not know a pandemic was coming. But the house stayed full the girls,
(03:13):
I mean a lot of times theygot locked in. We did not.
We never went without. We alwayswere able to pay the rent.
We were able to make sure thegirls had food, they had things to
do. So after that we werefull. We were turning girls away.
And we have a gentleman who's veryit's a very dear friend. I've known
(03:35):
him for a lot of years.Me and Sarah both have known him for
a lot of years, and hesays, how can I help, And
I'm like, we need the fundsto buy a new house. So he
gave us the money. It's alone. We have to pay it back,
but no money down, very decentinterest rate. And we found another house
directly down the street. It's likehalf a mile from where we're at.
So we bought that house in twentytwenty one, and it wasn't long after
(03:57):
that we were able to buy athird house and it's in Laport. And
again we stay full. We stillturn girls away on a regular basis.
The testimonials that day at lunch wereincredible. These are these are women who
had no script, no notes.They just came up and shared the devastation.
(04:19):
I mean, the young lady whohas the brand new little baby,
looking at her as a high schoolstudent, yeah, happy, full of
life, and then watching kind ofher get into a dark place, and
then you meet her as she's comeout of that with the help of you
all. And what she said was, even when I went to the house,
(04:43):
I knew I was not going tostay sober, and yet you guys
got her through it. It wasit was an unbelievable testimony. Now and
she's only twenty four years old nowand she's to so dear to all of
us. She came to us again. She had been from nineteen to twenty
(05:08):
two. She had been to eightdifferent rehabs, and each time was an
incident where she got physically injured orsomething along those lines. When she came,
she came to us like like shesaid, she knew she wasn't gonna
stay sober. She knew she couldn'tdo it. But we have so much
structure and so much rules, andit's not just that, but we care
(05:29):
about the women, and I thinkthat they really see that, they know
that they understand that she you know, she had she relapsed in our house
and she, you know, Italked about it and she overdessed. And
one of the reasons why we workedreally far to build that relationship within our
Camp Direct program because there's a lotof houses at that time that didn't have
(05:51):
an oar can and we wanted tomake sure that it was everywhere. After
that incident was what turned her around. It was what turned her around.
And she says this was because youknow, we all rallied around her and
we did so much to help herget back on her feet. But she
really did the work herself. Youknow, I think I think that scared
(06:12):
her. It really scared her thistime. And baby, my live is
just awesome. Oh he's just beautiful, just beautiful. And then the other
beautiful woman who spoke and gave hertestimony, and I love both of them
are just kind of just casually sharingtheir story and it's like, and that's
my story. And there was noyou know, bravado, It was just
sharing. So maybe the audience couldbe compelled to help you all. The
(06:36):
other beautiful lady who shared her storycame from the most tragic home life.
Mom and dad both alcoholics. Yeah, And then she shared a story that
she didn't share like maybe it wasthe first time she ever shared the story
about her feeling. It was thefirst time she'd ever shared it in public.
(06:56):
She I'm mental Illness runs in herfamily. And she had an older
brother who had committed suicide, andthen another one that decided he was schizophrenic.
And he decided he was going tokill the whole family at Christmas and
came in and attempted to do so, and that sent her on a tailspin.
(07:19):
Within two weeks, she was ina mental institution. And then it
was the youngest of five kids.She's the youngest, yes, of five
kids, and realized that her nextoldest brother was going to attack her.
She was the fourth in line.Yep, she said, I couldn't even
believe her. Tell it's like amovie, but it's a real life story.
(07:40):
Oh yeah, oh yeah. Andshe spent a lot of years bouncing
in and out of mental institutions.There was a lot more of her story
that she didn't tell because it wassuch a large group. She ended up
in the sex industry, and shewas in the sex industry for quite a
while. So when she had toleave Austin to come here, and she
(08:03):
really wanted to go home. Hermother got cancer just last year and she
was battling the cancer while she wasat sur house, and she was just
scared that she wouldn't stay sober ifshe went home. So that's why she
stayed with us. And at firstpeople went with her, you know,
to go see her mom, rightright, She was saying that how the
(08:24):
girls came with her and then cameto mom's funeral with her to make sure
that she was So we rented atAirbnb. There was a whole group of
us. We had like two carsand drove down. So you've got three
houses now, Katherine, and thesuccess is unbelievable. You all kind of
teaming together and you all having thatempathy because you've been through it. What
(08:46):
do you need from the community?I mean, I know you obviously have
to grow, and you grow orare you just you know? This is
going to be our little three houseorganization and this is all we can handle.
What are your dreams? So ourdreams is to have a thirty day
dtalks In the state of Texas.There is only one thirty day dtalk or
two. There's one in Pasadena andthen there's one in Dallas that a woman
(09:11):
can go to with no insurance,no state funding, no anything and just
walk in and come in and beable to get some dtalks and get some
help that needs to be rectified.In the Houston area there's five for men,
and that was our goal from thebeginning. We want to do it
(09:31):
the opposite way. A lot oftimes, they like New Hope Women Center,
which is a great organization. They'vebeen around for forty years or celebrating
a forty year anniversary. They don'tget state funding, but they rely on
donations, so they're constantly doing fundraisersand doing all those things. Our business
plan is to take the profit fromthe sober living houses and use it to
(09:52):
fund the thirty day house. Wefeel like we need four minimum five would
be better, and then that waywe don't have to worry about fundraising all
the time and worried about where thenext meal is going to come from.
Those girls in the detox and alsothe girls that are in the sober living
houses are giving back to the newgirls coming in. They know that the
(10:15):
portion of their rent is going tohelp the new person coming in off the
streets and giving them a place toget because they are working, well,
they're oh yes, yeah, nowthey're allowed to come to us with that.
They don't have to have a jobwhen they come in, but they
have fourteen days to give a job. We always give them the first week's
free, whether they have rent moneyor they don't have rent money, and
then they have fourteen days to geta job. So once they get a
(10:37):
job, well, at the endof the fourteen days, if they don't
have a job but they're really workinghard to try to find one and they're
following the rules, we'll extend thattime. But I mean, if they're
just lazing around and not doing whatthey're supposed to be doing. We don't.
We've never checked anybody out on thestreets. We do our best to
find a place for them to goif that's what they want. Sometimes they'll
just leave. So once they geta job and they come in and they'll
(11:01):
bring their chay check and we'll say, okay, you gotta pay for the
current week. We charge one hundredand forty dollars a week and the deposits
one hundred dollars, so you haveto pay the current week. And then
let's do a budget. Okay,so you need this much for to get
to work, you need this muchfor groceries, you need this much for
this as much of that. Thisis what you have left over. So
this is what you're going to paytorture back week every week until you get
(11:22):
paid. And sometimes it takes thegirls three months, five months, six
months to get caught up, butyou know they do it. They really
do it. They work hard toget it done. That's amazing. So
how can we help you out?What can we do? How can we
get in touch with you all?Okay, So our website is serhouse dot
org. Sirhouse dot org. Weneed I need help with community resources.
(11:50):
I go to like events, andI go to different things, and people
give me their card, and bythe time I get home or I get
to the cards, which is weekor two, a couple of days or
a week or whatever later, Idon't remember when they gave me their card
for or what the resource was,or you know, like at the event,
all these people came out to me, well I can help with this,
(12:11):
I can help with that, right. I don't know who those people
are now, because you know,there's so much and I need someone that
can organize that, organize our resources. There's tons of grants out there.
The Housing program has so many grantsthat we qualify for. I don't know
how to do grantwriting. I needsomeone that can do that for me.
(12:35):
Social media, I know how todo social media. I don't have time.
Don't have time. Any help wecan get, you know, time
talent energy is wonderful. Our nextevent coming up is in March. It
is March ninth. It's at theJimmy Burke Activity Center. It's an all
you can eat crawfish boil that wedo for an anniversary every year. That's
(12:58):
amazing, and I was hoping tobe able to talk one to coming out
and maybe broadcasting from there. Thatwould be with our promotions director, Melissa.
That is her area. I wouldnot go anywhere, but Melissa rains
me in. Yeah, So maybeyou can get me in contact with her,
because I think that would really getpeople to come out. It is
(13:20):
open to the public. What we'vedone the last two years is me and
my son have got out there andcooked all these crawfish, and last year
we cooked six hundred and twenty eightpounds of crawfish. Unbelievable. We had
to shut the kitchen down twice becausewe couldn't keep up with it. Right
now, I'm waiting for the city'sapproval. We're hoping to do a cookoff
(13:41):
this year, a crawfish cookoff wherewe have teams and the wristbands are usually
twenty five or thirty dollars and it'sall you can eat. Where can you
go and have crawfish all you caneat for twenty five or thirty Yes,
And it's at the Jimmy Bark ActivityCenter and it's on March ninth. Okay,
yeah, that's you know. Weonly do three fundraisers a year.
(14:03):
We do that one we do atbarbecue in July, and we do that
lunch in every year in September atlunch and that that that's where I met
all of you and heard the stories. Just incredible. To do anything more
than that is just it takes toomuch focus off the girls and off the
houses. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, because again it's not that they have
a lot of rules. There's alot of accountability. And we meet with
(14:24):
them every Sunday we have we goin like in one of them will volunteer
to cook and I'll get the ingredientsand we sit down and we cook and
we have a meal. When wego over, how's your week, how's
your doing on your step work,how's your job going, what's going on
you know with your family or youknow, you know, where are you
at? You know, it's reallykind of like a family atmosphere environment and
(14:46):
how can we help you. Theone thing about the detox that we're really
hoping to do is once we havethe detox is then set up classes and
stuff for the girls. We're notquite there yet, but once we get
there, I'm going to need peopleto come and help lead these classes.
You know, come show the girlshow to do your resume, show them
how to dress for an interview.Some of them have never been on an
(15:09):
interview. You know, how doI answer interview questions? How do I
address you know? We need allkinds of stuff like that. You know,
there are so many talented people inthe Houston and surrounding areas who are
looking for a way to help thecommunity. And that's why I thought just
featuring you on this would be agreat way where someone might just say,
oh my gosh, this is exactlywhat I've been praying for. Help.
(15:33):
You know, so many people whoare in incredible leadership positions who could share
their their time, talents and theirmoney. They can reach us through the
website or our phone number seven onethree nine six five four five four five,
and then it has recording. Ithink if you press forward that comes
straight to me, two or fivego straight to Sarah. I will.
(16:00):
We'll make sure we get all yourinformation plastic all over our social media.
So if people do feel compelled andwant to help out, maybe they've had
a family member, maybe they've beendealing with it themselves. The thing about
it is is the addiction and alcoholismaffects every family in the world. There's
not any family you're going to findthat hasn't had someone in their family who's
(16:22):
a drug odic or an alcoholic,or someone who has died from alcoholism or
drug over dust, especially in twentytwenty three. I mean, just on
the news this morning, there's aschool district that's passing out in our can
to all their I saw that yein our area? Yep, yes,
yes, right here at the luncheon. We've passed out in our can to
everyone. The city of the DirkPark Independent School District is waiting for the
(16:48):
legislation because that law was passing September. They have to have an ARCAN in
all the schools, so they're waitingfor the guidelines so they can find out
what training needs to be done.Do they have to send them somewhere or
can I go in with some ofmy girls and teach them how to use
them our can. But I'm workingreally closely with my girls. Go to
Deer Park in the school district andI volunteer there once a week, so
(17:12):
I'll walk around at the lunch room. I'm the lunch monitor. As if
you don't have enough to do goodfor you know it needs to be done.
You know, I need to beinvolved in their school. Yeah.
Well, it's amazing what you've gonethrough so you can help others to avoid
this deep dark pit and get theirlives back on track. And we appreciate
(17:36):
you, and I thank you fortaking some time to sit and talk with
us and probably we can learn more, no problem. Thank you so much
for having me on. And ifyou can give me Ashley's number because I
want to get her on my onmy calendar. Absolutely, y'all on our
calendar. I sure will, Isure will. All right, Thank you
Catherine. Good to talk with you. Okay, bye
Every family in some way is affectedby drug or alcohol addiction. And there
are three houses. They are Sistersin Recovery sober Homes. Wait until you
hear the story of Catherine. She'smy guest on my Dana Tyson podcast.
And thank you so much Mattress Macfrom Gallery Furniture for always being such a
(00:20):
great sponsor. I met you beforeI heard you speak. I was invited
to this incredible luncheon. I hadno idea what I was in store for
and how you women would affect myheart. Sisters in Recovery or sir as.
You are the founder, the bosslady, the one who kicks these
(00:42):
ladies into gear. There's two ofus, myself and Sarah Bergman, and
we started the organization in two twenty. Tell us how this. You've got
quite a history that you shared withme, and that obviously prepared you for
how you were going to help somany other women. Yeah. So my
(01:03):
mom got sober in nineteen eighty fivewhen I was seventeen years old, and
three months later I moved out.So let's talk about did she become obnoxious
or very judgmental? No, itwas all of a sudden. She wanted
everyone to be sober, and youknow that that just didn't work for me.
I was seventeen. I've been doingwhat I wanted to do for a
(01:23):
long time, so you just can'tcome in and all of a sudden,
now there's rules. Yea. Yeah. So the whole time that she was
sober, she would women would cometo live with her from different detoxes and
that needed to get on their feet, like newly sober. And at one
time she had a house and everyroom was full of women and she didn't
(01:47):
have much sobriety either, and theyall just kind of got sober together.
And so I bounced in and outof this program for years. It took
me seventeen years to get one year. On November of this year, I'll
have twenty four years sober, andmy mom has thirty eight years sober.
So her example really kind of helpedshape what we wanted to do. There's
(02:08):
a women's d talks in Pasadena calledNew Hope Women's Center, and the women
can go there and stay for thirtydays free a charge, and then after
that, if they have space,they can become what's called a resident,
but they only have like three residentrooms, and I think there's three or
four girls in each room, andthey're not very big. They're small rooms.
(02:29):
So when we stepped off the board, one of the things that we
decided to try to do was toopen a sober living home. So we
leased the first one, which isin Pasadena. Don't give out the address
on air for the safety of thewomen, but it's located in Pasadena,
right in the heart of Pasadena.It was the people that owned it.
(02:51):
The woman was a psychiatrist and shehad retired, and so it was already
ready to go, had the parkinglot. It was good. So we
leased it in January twenty twenty andour first girl moved in in February.
Did not know a pandemic was coming. But the house stayed full the girls,
(03:13):
I mean a lot of times theygot locked in. We did not.
We never went without. We alwayswere able to pay the rent.
We were able to make sure thegirls had food, they had things to
do. So after that we werefull. We were turning girls away.
And we have a gentleman who's veryit's a very dear friend. I've known
(03:35):
him for a lot of years.Me and Sarah both have known him for
a lot of years, and hesays, how can I help, And
I'm like, we need the fundsto buy a new house. So he
gave us the money. It's alone. We have to pay it back,
but no money down, very decentinterest rate. And we found another house
directly down the street. It's likehalf a mile from where we're at.
So we bought that house in twentytwenty one, and it wasn't long after
(03:57):
that we were able to buy athird house and it's in Laport. And
again we stay full. We stillturn girls away on a regular basis.
The testimonials that day at lunch wereincredible. These are these are women who
had no script, no notes.They just came up and shared the devastation.
(04:19):
I mean, the young lady whohas the brand new little baby,
looking at her as a high schoolstudent, yeah, happy, full of
life, and then watching kind ofher get into a dark place, and
then you meet her as she's comeout of that with the help of you
all. And what she said was, even when I went to the house,
(04:43):
I knew I was not going tostay sober, and yet you guys
got her through it. It wasit was an unbelievable testimony. Now and
she's only twenty four years old nowand she's to so dear to all of
us. She came to us again. She had been from nineteen to twenty
(05:08):
two. She had been to eightdifferent rehabs, and each time was an
incident where she got physically injured orsomething along those lines. When she came,
she came to us like like shesaid, she knew she wasn't gonna
stay sober. She knew she couldn'tdo it. But we have so much
structure and so much rules, andit's not just that, but we care
(05:29):
about the women, and I thinkthat they really see that, they know
that they understand that she you know, she had she relapsed in our house
and she, you know, Italked about it and she overdessed. And
one of the reasons why we workedreally far to build that relationship within our
Camp Direct program because there's a lotof houses at that time that didn't have
(05:51):
an oar can and we wanted tomake sure that it was everywhere. After
that incident was what turned her around. It was what turned her around.
And she says this was because youknow, we all rallied around her and
we did so much to help herget back on her feet. But she
really did the work herself. Youknow, I think I think that scared
(06:12):
her. It really scared her thistime. And baby, my live is
just awesome. Oh he's just beautiful, just beautiful. And then the other
beautiful woman who spoke and gave hertestimony, and I love both of them
are just kind of just casually sharingtheir story and it's like, and that's
my story. And there was noyou know, bravado, It was just
sharing. So maybe the audience couldbe compelled to help you all. The
(06:36):
other beautiful lady who shared her storycame from the most tragic home life.
Mom and dad both alcoholics. Yeah, And then she shared a story that
she didn't share like maybe it wasthe first time she ever shared the story
about her feeling. It was thefirst time she'd ever shared it in public.
(06:56):
She I'm mental Illness runs in herfamily. And she had an older
brother who had committed suicide, andthen another one that decided he was schizophrenic.
And he decided he was going tokill the whole family at Christmas and
came in and attempted to do so, and that sent her on a tailspin.
(07:19):
Within two weeks, she was ina mental institution. And then it
was the youngest of five kids.She's the youngest, yes, of five
kids, and realized that her nextoldest brother was going to attack her.
She was the fourth in line.Yep, she said, I couldn't even
believe her. Tell it's like amovie, but it's a real life story.
(07:40):
Oh yeah, oh yeah. Andshe spent a lot of years bouncing
in and out of mental institutions.There was a lot more of her story
that she didn't tell because it wassuch a large group. She ended up
in the sex industry, and shewas in the sex industry for quite a
while. So when she had toleave Austin to come here, and she
(08:03):
really wanted to go home. Hermother got cancer just last year and she
was battling the cancer while she wasat sur house, and she was just
scared that she wouldn't stay sober ifshe went home. So that's why she
stayed with us. And at firstpeople went with her, you know,
to go see her mom, rightright, She was saying that how the
(08:24):
girls came with her and then cameto mom's funeral with her to make sure
that she was So we rented atAirbnb. There was a whole group of
us. We had like two carsand drove down. So you've got three
houses now, Katherine, and thesuccess is unbelievable. You all kind of
teaming together and you all having thatempathy because you've been through it. What
(08:46):
do you need from the community?I mean, I know you obviously have
to grow, and you grow orare you just you know? This is
going to be our little three houseorganization and this is all we can handle.
What are your dreams? So ourdreams is to have a thirty day
dtalks In the state of Texas.There is only one thirty day dtalk or
two. There's one in Pasadena andthen there's one in Dallas that a woman
(09:11):
can go to with no insurance,no state funding, no anything and just
walk in and come in and beable to get some dtalks and get some
help that needs to be rectified.In the Houston area there's five for men,
and that was our goal from thebeginning. We want to do it
(09:31):
the opposite way. A lot oftimes, they like New Hope Women Center,
which is a great organization. They'vebeen around for forty years or celebrating
a forty year anniversary. They don'tget state funding, but they rely on
donations, so they're constantly doing fundraisersand doing all those things. Our business
plan is to take the profit fromthe sober living houses and use it to
(09:52):
fund the thirty day house. Wefeel like we need four minimum five would
be better, and then that waywe don't have to worry about fundraising all
the time and worried about where thenext meal is going to come from.
Those girls in the detox and alsothe girls that are in the sober living
houses are giving back to the newgirls coming in. They know that the
(10:15):
portion of their rent is going tohelp the new person coming in off the
streets and giving them a place toget because they are working, well,
they're oh yes, yeah, nowthey're allowed to come to us with that.
They don't have to have a jobwhen they come in, but they
have fourteen days to give a job. We always give them the first week's
free, whether they have rent moneyor they don't have rent money, and
then they have fourteen days to geta job. So once they get a
(10:37):
job, well, at the endof the fourteen days, if they don't
have a job but they're really workinghard to try to find one and they're
following the rules, we'll extend thattime. But I mean, if they're
just lazing around and not doing whatthey're supposed to be doing. We don't.
We've never checked anybody out on thestreets. We do our best to
find a place for them to goif that's what they want. Sometimes they'll
just leave. So once they geta job and they come in and they'll
(11:01):
bring their chay check and we'll say, okay, you gotta pay for the
current week. We charge one hundredand forty dollars a week and the deposits
one hundred dollars, so you haveto pay the current week. And then
let's do a budget. Okay,so you need this much for to get
to work, you need this muchfor groceries, you need this much for
this as much of that. Thisis what you have left over. So
this is what you're going to paytorture back week every week until you get
(11:22):
paid. And sometimes it takes thegirls three months, five months, six
months to get caught up, butyou know they do it. They really
do it. They work hard toget it done. That's amazing. So
how can we help you out?What can we do? How can we
get in touch with you all?Okay, So our website is serhouse dot
org. Sirhouse dot org. Weneed I need help with community resources.
(11:50):
I go to like events, andI go to different things, and people
give me their card, and bythe time I get home or I get
to the cards, which is weekor two, a couple of days or
a week or whatever later, Idon't remember when they gave me their card
for or what the resource was,or you know, like at the event,
all these people came out to me, well I can help with this,
(12:11):
I can help with that, right. I don't know who those people
are now, because you know,there's so much and I need someone that
can organize that, organize our resources. There's tons of grants out there.
The Housing program has so many grantsthat we qualify for. I don't know
how to do grantwriting. I needsomeone that can do that for me.
(12:35):
Social media, I know how todo social media. I don't have time.
Don't have time. Any help wecan get, you know, time
talent energy is wonderful. Our nextevent coming up is in March. It
is March ninth. It's at theJimmy Burke Activity Center. It's an all
you can eat crawfish boil that wedo for an anniversary every year. That's
(12:58):
amazing, and I was hoping tobe able to talk one to coming out
and maybe broadcasting from there. Thatwould be with our promotions director, Melissa.
That is her area. I wouldnot go anywhere, but Melissa rains
me in. Yeah, So maybeyou can get me in contact with her,
because I think that would really getpeople to come out. It is
(13:20):
open to the public. What we'vedone the last two years is me and
my son have got out there andcooked all these crawfish, and last year
we cooked six hundred and twenty eightpounds of crawfish. Unbelievable. We had
to shut the kitchen down twice becausewe couldn't keep up with it. Right
now, I'm waiting for the city'sapproval. We're hoping to do a cookoff
(13:41):
this year, a crawfish cookoff wherewe have teams and the wristbands are usually
twenty five or thirty dollars and it'sall you can eat. Where can you
go and have crawfish all you caneat for twenty five or thirty Yes,
And it's at the Jimmy Bark ActivityCenter and it's on March ninth. Okay,
yeah, that's you know. Weonly do three fundraisers a year.
(14:03):
We do that one we do atbarbecue in July, and we do that
lunch in every year in September atlunch and that that that's where I met
all of you and heard the stories. Just incredible. To do anything more
than that is just it takes toomuch focus off the girls and off the
houses. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah, because again it's not that they have
a lot of rules. There's alot of accountability. And we meet with
(14:24):
them every Sunday we have we goin like in one of them will volunteer
to cook and I'll get the ingredientsand we sit down and we cook and
we have a meal. When wego over, how's your week, how's
your doing on your step work,how's your job going, what's going on
you know with your family or youknow, you know, where are you
at? You know, it's reallykind of like a family atmosphere environment and
(14:46):
how can we help you. Theone thing about the detox that we're really
hoping to do is once we havethe detox is then set up classes and
stuff for the girls. We're notquite there yet, but once we get
there, I'm going to need peopleto come and help lead these classes.
You know, come show the girlshow to do your resume, show them
how to dress for an interview.Some of them have never been on an
(15:09):
interview. You know, how doI answer interview questions? How do I
address you know? We need allkinds of stuff like that. You know,
there are so many talented people inthe Houston and surrounding areas who are
looking for a way to help thecommunity. And that's why I thought just
featuring you on this would be agreat way where someone might just say,
oh my gosh, this is exactlywhat I've been praying for. Help.
(15:33):
You know, so many people whoare in incredible leadership positions who could share
their their time, talents and theirmoney. They can reach us through the
website or our phone number seven onethree nine six five four five four five,
and then it has recording. Ithink if you press forward that comes
straight to me, two or fivego straight to Sarah. I will.
(16:00):
We'll make sure we get all yourinformation plastic all over our social media.
So if people do feel compelled andwant to help out, maybe they've had
a family member, maybe they've beendealing with it themselves. The thing about
it is is the addiction and alcoholismaffects every family in the world. There's
not any family you're going to findthat hasn't had someone in their family who's
(16:22):
a drug odic or an alcoholic,or someone who has died from alcoholism or
drug over dust, especially in twentytwenty three. I mean, just on
the news this morning, there's aschool district that's passing out in our can
to all their I saw that yein our area? Yep, yes,
yes, right here at the luncheon. We've passed out in our can to
everyone. The city of the DirkPark Independent School District is waiting for the
(16:48):
legislation because that law was passing September. They have to have an ARCAN in
all the schools, so they're waitingfor the guidelines so they can find out
what training needs to be done.Do they have to send them somewhere or
can I go in with some ofmy girls and teach them how to use
them our can. But I'm workingreally closely with my girls. Go to
Deer Park in the school district andI volunteer there once a week, so
(17:12):
I'll walk around at the lunch room. I'm the lunch monitor. As if
you don't have enough to do goodfor you know it needs to be done.
You know, I need to beinvolved in their school. Yeah.
Well, it's amazing what you've gonethrough so you can help others to avoid
this deep dark pit and get theirlives back on track. And we appreciate
(17:36):
you, and I thank you fortaking some time to sit and talk with
us and probably we can learn more, no problem. Thank you so much
for having me on. And ifyou can give me Ashley's number because I
want to get her on my onmy calendar. Absolutely, y'all on our
calendar. I sure will, Isure will. All right, Thank you
Catherine. Good to talk with you. Okay, bye
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