Latest / Our Community, Our Mission / Ep #268 – Legacy of Love: Jenny Falk’s Path Through TRM and Beyond

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Ep #268 – Legacy of Love: Jenny Falk’s Path Through TRM and Beyond · Our Community, Our Mission

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for this day and your blessings, God and Lord, just this time to be together to have this conversation and, Lord, just pray your blessing over it and blessings over our listeners.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Father, Bless this time in Jesus' name Amen.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Hello everybody, thank you for joining us for our Community, our Mission.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: A podcast of the Topeka Rescue Mission on a beautiful Tuesday in May 20th 2025, episode number 268.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: I'm your host, barry Feeker, here with LaManda Cunningham and Marion Crable, with a very special guest who's been on the podcast before, but we'll get to her in a second.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: So good morning, lamanda and Marion.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Good morning it is a beautiful day, especially since we dodged tornadoes and severe weather last night.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: We got wonderful rain, yeah, so it is beautiful out.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: We dodged tornadoes and severe weather.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Last night we got wonderful rain, yeah yeah.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: So it is beautiful out there right now, so, and we got some really awesome things we're going to talk about.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: They're going to happen this week, and so we're going to jump right into it to talk about an event that's coming up and also a big transition.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: So, lamanda, as CEO of Topeka Rescue Mission, you know how important it is to have staff that are with you for years, even though you've only been here three.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: That's right it feels, like 30.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: But yeah.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: So what does it mean to you to have known that you've had a staff member that served 11 years at Topeka Rescue Mission?
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: You know, I think, anytime you're at the Topeka Rescue Mission and doing this, the demands and the blessings right of this job.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: It is something that you have to say yes to, but also say yes more than once, because it's full.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: It's full of challenges.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Oftentimes, people that work at the rescue mission do not just do one job or wear one hat and you know, sometimes change is hard for people and sometimes you know the constant need to be flexible because things are just out of our control, right.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: So to me I just appreciate any staff members we have, but especially each year the devotion that they have and the loyalty to the Lord and the longevity to me really stands out, because there's just a lot in this job that requires us to recommit and recommit to the Lord's work, because it's beautiful but it's not easy.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so that long term.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: And then there's also when you have somebody that you really value and then, they move on.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: That's a big of a challenge as well.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't do that well.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: No, I'm just kidding.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: You know I've said this before.
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: I can't remember how you posed the question, but my response, barry, was recognizing that TRM isn't mine.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: My response, barry, was recognizing that TRM isn't mine.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: It's something that God has entrusted me to help steward with an incredible team, and that's a responsibility I don't take lightly.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: But then he also entrusts me to realize that his vision and what he sees is so much bigger than what I can see, and that sometimes the obedience he's requiring me, requiring of me, is to let people go because of what he's either doing in their lives and our community in a bigger way.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: I have to know that when people are saying yes to something else and leaving, that also means that God's calling someone else to say yes to that position.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: And so really, the Lord just kind of asked me to get out of the way sometimes and know that, even though I love my people, he loves them more and that his plan is bigger than what I could ever imagine.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: And in order to be a good leader for him, I have to help know when people need and they're being led elsewhere by him.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: We have restricted Lamanda, though, from chains and padlocks.
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: Yes, that's right, Because she will.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: She will lock people in there.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, we're not restricted for putting chains and padlocks on her.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Okay, okay.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Well then we're fine when someone does leave me.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: I may have been known to be a little dramatic and dress in all black and kind of have some time of mourning, um, but my motto is and it has been that way for probably 15 years if it doesn't hurt when you leave, you didn't do it right.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: And I also believe that with others, if it doesn't hurt when you lose somebody, they weren't doing things right.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: And this loss that we're about to talk about and I am not going to cry is also a huge gain for our unsheltered neighbors.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: It's a huge gain for partnerships that need her more.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: It's a huge gain for our community having compassionate and logistic momentum for moving forward.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: And so, absolutely it's a loss.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: You know, I feel like I have a big sister that's leaving me that I have entrusted, but I also am so excited for her next steps because she is a force to be reckoned with, with her love for the Lord, her love for people, but also her ability and her skill sets that are so operational, with the heart of Christ at the focus of it, and I'm excited to see where that's going to take her.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Well, that's a pretty good buildup to who our guest today is yeah, just don't ask me anything else.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: the rest of the time.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: If anybody knows anything about the Mobile Access Partnership, they know the name, jenny Falk, and so, jenny, thank you for joining us here today.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: You ended your 11-year tenure at Topeka Rescue Mission last Friday and started your new adventure yesterday with Compassion Strategies.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: So talk about how you got to Topeka Rescue Mission, what it's meant to you, and then we want to talk about your next assignment.
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: I don't remember what I shared when I was on here the first time.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: That's okay, we don't either.
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: We're at podcast number 268.
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: Basically, like most or many staff, I started as a volunteer helping.
• 5:58
  Speaker 4: I brought my two little boys.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: When they were little.
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, volunteering serving meals in the dining hall.
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: Sorry, you know, I haven't let myself get emotional.
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: And then it happens at the work time.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: You're around LaManda.
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: Same same.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Josh and.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: I, we play pretty cool over here, we just don't listen, just block it out, block it out.
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: That's right, that's awful.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: Hey, we got to do our jobs.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: If I start crying, I'm going to mess up the sound.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: So anyway because of that experience of volunteering and I was blessed with the opportunity to work from home, but they had made it very clear that that job would eventually end and because of my experience here, I just knew that I just needed to be at the mission when that job ended.
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: There was no gap in my employment.
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: The Lord just made a way and so I initially started in our former thrift store, which is now Doughboy's Pizza, Worked there for three years, left for a year and then came back, started in volunteer, volunteer services and then just done many roles since then.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: So just talk about some of those roles that you yeah.
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: So I came in to help with volunteer services and then you were launching Freedom Now and trying to run the rescue mission and starting that and it was recognized you would need an executive assistance, which you had not had up until that time, that's part of your career, right, it was yes, honestly, I am grateful for those years that we got to work so closely together with Freedom, now and then even beyond that.
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: And so then there was Operation Food Secure.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: During the pandemic?
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: And what did you do in Operation?
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: Food Secure During the pandemic?
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: Yes, yeah.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: And what did you do in Operation?
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: Food Secure.
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: I basically did the logistics you know inventory scheduling, the orders, volunteers you know managing inventory to make sure we had space for what was coming in and what was going out.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: Food that was being provided by the USDA to feed people during the pandemic, which translated into be over about 18 months, 10 different counties, 120,000 different people and 4 million pounds of food.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: That's a lot of inventory that you coordinated back and forth between the providers and the 500 volunteers, so I want people to get a little bit of an idea of what you're doing.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: So we got through that, through the pandemic, and that program ended and then you didn't return back to being the executive assistant for the executive director.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: At that time you had some other ambitions.
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: Yes, because this thing mobile access partnership was bubbling up and really my duties for you were becoming less and less because of your transition and I had extra time and I just knew my gifting in organizing and logistics and I said, hey, could I help with that in my extra time?
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: And I knew that it was going to allow me more engagement with our neighbors which I hadn't had in any of my previous roles.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: What was the desire or what do you remember feeling about going from more of an administrative role to being in the streets, to being a part of outreach, to being at these places where people are coming right off the streets and looking for a shower, looking for something to eat?
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: What do you remember about your attraction to that or your calling to that, whatever you want to term it as.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: And then, what has happened in the time since?
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think part of it was.
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: I think I understand now that how God kind of wired me to fight for the underdog, I guess for lack of a better word, not that they're the underdog.
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: Fight for the underdog, I guess, for lack of a better word, not that they're the underdog, but also and this is nothing against any admin position but I knew that, I don't know.
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: I just felt like I would be able to have more impact hands-on in a position like that and the Lord was just giving me a heart for that.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: If people aren't familiar with what we call MAP or the Mobile Access Partnership.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: It was a kind of experiment that birthed out of the pandemic times, because Topeka Rescue Mission had to become smaller in its population because of social distancing and all those kind of things.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: I think, miriam, back in the day we didn't know if we were going to live or die right.
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, that was a question out there, that's for sure.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: Remember the training packages that you put together to train people on.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: I remember a wet doorknob is a good doorknob.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: You remember that.
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: You know I do, I cringe.
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: Why was a wet?
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: doorknob, a good doorknob back in the early days of the pandemic.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: Because?
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: Because that means it had been sprayed with some kind of disinfectant, and it was the most disgusting thing.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: So we had teams go around spraying doorknobs all day, all night long to keep people from getting COVID.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: Then we found out that's okay, it doesn't happen that way.
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: One thing I like to sorry not to cut in, but one thing that I like to say about MAP specifically is we all know that COVID was a tragic thing for our world.
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but God is so good about taking something bad and making good of it, and I believe that's what the mobile access partnership Absolutely.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: That's that old Romans 828.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: God works all things together for good.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: To then love him.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: And a call to call to his purpose and I think that we begin to see, yes, the tragedy of COVID, the complications of COVID.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: We're still experiencing those challenges even today, with economic issues and whatnot.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: But yet, at the same time, god didn't forget about the nearly 50% of the population of Topeka Rescue Mission that could no longer stay with us and the growing number of homeless.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: So we had this idea of how could we take the services inside Topeka Rescue Mission to the streets.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: And we'd had outreach for a number of years, which through the rescue mission and partnerships with other agencies to reach the unsheltered.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: But how about taking a shower?
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: How about taking a kitchen?
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: How about taking, eventually, what we would learn to be extremely important veterinarians?
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Out there with us and setting up kind of a system of a mobile rescue mission without a place to stay.
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: Well, and if it hadn't been for COVID, vallejo wouldn't have had a shower trailer, because that was funded by a COVID grant.
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: Right, right.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: So I called Vallejo.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: Our mental health provider in the community talked to then CEO Bill Persinger and I said, hey, could you go out and fund or find the funding to have a mobile shower unit?
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: And Bill said, yeah, we'll give it a try, and he was able to do it.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: Then we Merrim you remember this pretty well, is that we At that time, because Topeka Rescue Mission, previous to COVID, had not dabbled in government funding, we thought, okay, let's go for it, there's some money out here, let's see if we can get a mobile kitchen.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: You remember what the answer to that was yes, no.
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: I don't remember the answer to that, because it didn't happen that way.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: The now director of the Lawrence Community Shelter, who was with the grant funder, said no, no, said no, which he's a good guy who worked for the rescue mission for a while.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: But the Lord provided yeah.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: So we go wow, there's no money for a mobile kitchen.
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: It'd be really nice if we could take out food and not just haul it around the back of a vehicle.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: And so we prayed, and about 48 hours later we had a special donor that came along.
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: And we had a donor that gave us the clothing trailer.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: I mean the Lord just provided for everything that we were going to need.
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: Which that donor was because of Operation Food Secure here If you remember they helped with the food distribution.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely so, these difficult things.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: Now we're seeing people come together and want to do something different.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: So now we begin to not only have a mobile shower unit, we have a mobile kitchen, we have the trucks to pull everything with, we have the mobile supply unit.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Then our good friends over at Starmont Vale they were building a mobile medical unit, and so this bus that's actually a mini clinic moves around.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: They can do, I think, everything but surgeries on there.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: And then Dr Allison Crowe, which we've had on the podcast before, helped formulate a local street dog coalition which is part of a national organization connected with Kansas State University, shawnee County Health Department, and the list goes on of these partners.
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: And we started moving around.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: But we needed somebody to organize all this, and so it really didn't have a home at that time.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: It was a rescue mission in Vallejo and so forth, and so we said, okay, what can be the umbrella organization?
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: And so Miriam and I had a chance, on the front end of this, to start something called Compassion Strategies, which exists today.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: And so today, compassion Strategies is a nonprofit organization.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: Its primary focus is MAP, mobile Access Partnership, and then also this campaign to end chronic homelessness became this, homelessness became this and we needed somebody to organize, coordinate not just administratively, but what I kind of refer to you, jenny, as you're kind of like an air traffic controller.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: We've got all these different aircraft coming in, we've got cargo planes, passenger planes, we've taken off, but you have to organize that well, and that's what you became now, about four years ago, is the director of map operations.
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: So what's that been like for you?
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: You got out of the streets.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: You're still kind of doing some administrative things, but you are actually boots on the ground.
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I didn't initially set out to be the director of the program.
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: Remember, I was willing to help Right right.
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: The Lord had other plans, and so it has definitely been a learning process and, honestly, as much as I wanted to be able to engage with our neighbors, I was very intimidated by them, and so MAP just provided great opportunities.
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: I remember early on we happened to have a cornhole game on site and one of the individuals who I was very afraid of went over there and started playing cornhole and I really felt like the Lord was telling me go play cornhole with him and completely shifted my perspective of him and all of them, you know, and we had a great time.
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: I beat him.
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: I still give him a hard time about that, uh, but yeah, I, I just honestly, sometimes I, just I I'm figuring out as I go, I, I, um, yeah, sometimes I don't feel equipped to do this work, but the Lord continues to use me, so I just show up.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: And I think that's where we all start, because we have to be willing to go where God calls us to go.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: And I know one of the first things that I began to realize as MAP was what we call in full operation Now you're director of operations is that there weren't too many people walked up that you didn't know their name and they knew your name and your volunteers.
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: Knowing people's names is huge and also their special needs.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: There was one gentleman one time that I remember the location that we were at Grace Point, and you came up to me and said we just learned something about him.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: We have potato chips here for people today and he's not eating any potato chips.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: He loves potato chips, but he's not eating until he realized he had no teeth.
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: And so you all mashed up the potato chips so he could then be able to consume the potato chips, just those special things.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: What a difference that made for that particular individual.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Well, part of the journey is that until last Friday was your last day you were an employee of Topeka Rescue Mission, which you also in conjunction with Mobile Access Partnership Mission, which you, also in conjunction with Mobile Access Partnership, thanks to TRM and LaManda, gave you an opportunity to do that under the umbrella of Topeka Rescue Mission, as well as be part of the outreach team of Topeka Rescue Mission.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: So you're out in the streets with that team working and systems and the different things there.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Lamanda partnership is a lot of what Topeka Rescue Mission is about.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: Although Topeka Rescue Mission leads in so many areas, talk about your, from your view, the value and importance of having kind of given the platform for Jenny to be able to go to where she's going now.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: That's an investment of Topeka Rescue Commission, investment of donors that were giving Topeka Rescue Commission on that, which has now shifted.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: Why is that important?
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: To invest in things that maybe leave TRM to go do the next thing?
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: You know what we do inside TRM and outside TRM is not TRMs, and I feel like a kind of a broken record right now.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: Miriam is probably tired of hearing me say it because she's had a lot of functions with me and meetings.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: But when I say that our things whether it's our buildings or our resources, our people, our people it's not ours.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: We feel very strongly that the Lord created 70 something years ago for the Topeka Rescue Mission to bring his light, his healing, his hope to people.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Period.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: And so there's a lot of good that happens within our walls.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of good that happens outside the walls because of the people in our departments and things.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: But our mission is so much bigger than TRM operations.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: It's so much bigger than just our volunteers, just our staff.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: What we see God do is bring everybody here but then do his work which surpasses any of our own abilities.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: And so when I think about whether it's Jenny or we could say this for a lot of people, right, we could say people that are Misty, who has left TRM and now she's doing incredible things in Lawrence.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: We could say the same thing about James.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: We could say the same thing when people move out of state, marissa, who was instrumental in Operation Food Secure.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: The list goes on and on.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Right those partnerships, or being able to see things bigger than just what we're doing within TRM, is important in my opinion, because that means we are staying anchored to the heart of the Lord and anytime we become selfish, whether that's with money, whether that's with food, personnel, procedures, not wanting to share policies, whatever the case may be, that is so far from the Lord's heart, and so I know it sounds cliche and I know I've had a couple of people and I appreciated them coming up to me.
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: But would you really share that with us?
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: Like if we started our own shelter, you would really help us with the operations that you have?
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Yes, we would.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: If you feel like that's what God's calling you to do, or you feel like it's in the best name of humanity and you want to do this, we're here to help.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Trm is not just wanting to sit here and build some big empire based on homelessness and so-.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: There's plenty of customers out here.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: There's plenty of customers.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: And when I look at people serving people, that's not a competition.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: People serving people is for the betterment of people and so in this particular thing, this is probably a topic we could do a whole podcast on, honestly, especially right now with what nonprofits are facing.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: But I will continue to do the best that I can to stay anchored to the Lord's heart, even when it seems scary Jenny leaving our street reach team it is scary.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: She's got incredible relationships.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: She's got impeccable knowledge of homeless encampments.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Her intuition is incredible like none other, and I could go on and on about her.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: Having Jenny leave TRM is a loss period If I'm looking at it only from the lens of our own operations.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: If I continue to view Jenny as a woman of Christ on a mission, there is no loss, there is an expansion.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: She has continued her work for the Lord from TRM and the Lord used her in a season for TRM, built her for her next season.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: That he needs to use her and I have got to let her go just as beautifully as I would have welcomed her.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: And in my time here I didn't bring Jenny on, but she moved a couple of different areas while I was here Right and supervision and not supervision all that.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: I needed to do those things.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Just as beautiful, as I'm going to let her go.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Beautiful Because when I'm looking at the brokenness and the challenges and all of the just struggles that our community is facing, I cannot look at TRM being one entity in it.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: I have to look at it as we're all on a purpose from the Lord, and that includes when personnel have a different purpose that steps outside the boundaries of TRM.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: She's still doing kingdom work, so who am I to not want to support that?
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: It flies in the face of the people who say we have silos in this work, which they're just informed because this is not silos.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: This is actually working together, people going to the best place they fit.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: Map is a good example of that.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: It's a big rescue mission and other agencies that have been doing this now for four years, and so we are coming up on that celebration this Thursday, which is the 22nd Okay, thank you, the 22nd of May and so we're having a special 10 am to 1 pm at the Topeka First United Methodist, which is 6th, and Topeka Boulevard, which is one of those sites that we go to.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: It'll be a regular map day, jenny, where the unsheltered neighbors will be coming up getting their services, but also people are invited to come from 10 to 1.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: And there's going to be a press conference at 1030.
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: And you've been organizing that and who are some of the speakers that are going to be at that that come to the top of your mind?
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: It's not going to be a long press conference, so don't worry, but who are some of those folks and what agencies are going to be represented?
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: Pastor Brad is going to lead us off, carla Hedquist from at the Stormont Vale, amy Kapasti with Vallejo, brett Martin with United Way and Ahod Kerry Higgins with the city and Impact Avenues.
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: There's another, I don't want to name.
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: Right next to you.
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: Amanda.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Rowe, it's okay, we just roll with it.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: She's too close to you and we have a volunteer.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: A volunteer is going to speak.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: Yes, we have a volunteer Monia Schmidt.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: And you and me, yes, yeah, and you and I get to kind of I think there's probably others.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: I get to keep everybody rolling on two-minute time limits, so yeah.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't oh go ahead.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: Well, that was a lot from.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: Jenny, you know, get her done.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: Time to wrap it up.
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: Let's get to rolling here, Because you know you respect those time limits so well.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Well, it doesn't apply to everybody, but anyway.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: So there will be refreshments there, our neighbors will be there, it should be a beautiful day, like it is today, and to be able to really see what this is all about.
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: And then there's going to be a very special announcement.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: We're not going to tell you on this podcast what it is.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: You'll have to come and find out but it's a really special announcement that I think is going to be a part of this whole concept.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: We've been talking about the campaign to end chronic homelessness, and so we'll talk about that at the end, what the next step is in that.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: So, jenny, we've already talked about your last day at TRM.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: You talked about how you got here, what's your thoughts about going forward, because the mobile access partnership is going to be doing more than what it's doing.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: We'll talk more about that come Thursday.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: But now your Compassion Strategies, and that's a fairly new organization.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: The good news I get to work with you full time again.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: And what excites you about this?
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: What scares you about this?
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I have both.
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: I'm excited because right now I believe the program is at its capacity in its current model.
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: I can't without saying too much.
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: I am excited because I do believe we are going to be able to grow the program in services that we offer and then hopefully eventually expand hours of operation, days of operation, that kind of thing.
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: What scares me is how it's all going to come together.
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: Hopefully we can baby step it out, like we did the mobile model.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: So, for those who would like to know about how Jenny gets scared, she gets scared with faith, which motivates her.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: So, when we were addressing human trafficking issues, we started back in, I think, 2014 or something, and here it is 2018.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: And we really felt like we were supposed to go to the Kansas legislature and try to get them to that was in January of 2018, the beginning of the year and to see if they would sign on to declare war on human trafficking.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: And so we chose February 1st to be the date of 2019 to do that, because that would give us a year plus to help the legislature to understand February 1st, which was the same day that Abraham Lincoln signed the paper's 13th Amendment to abolish slavery in the United States.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: So let's use that date to abolish human trafficking.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: And so that was a pretty daunting task to get everybody in the legislature, including the governor's office, to jump on board with that, and we were going to take a year to do it.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: And you, Jenny, said well, why not this year, Because it can't happen that fast.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: There's no way it will happen, and I don't remember the exact words is well, if we trust God, let's see.
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: Sure enough, three weeks later, both House and the Senate signed on to that and the governor's office did too, which was historic.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Nothing ever done that fast at the Kansas State legislature level.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: So when you were scared but also walking in faith, same thing happened off recent food secure.
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: I remember you were this daunting task.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: This is never going to happen.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: Come back on it later.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: 500 volunteers, 20 or 10 counties, 200, 120,000 people.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: It was a five, yeah, and 4 million pounds of food.
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: So here you are four years later and 4 million pounds of food.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: So here you are four years later MAP operations.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: And I think, Jenny, I think we all understand that there's nobody better to do this than you.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: And so we are grateful You're not leaving TRM.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: In regards to intersection with TRM, we're going to continue doing that, because TRM is a vital role in this effort, and will be going forward.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: So, jenny, thank you for saying yes.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: Anything else you would like to share with us today?
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: Well, I do just want to say I am so grateful to TRM, to everybody, To TRM, to everybody.
• 28:55
  Speaker 4: Like you all have been so supportive and patient and gracious and allowing me to learn and grow into this role.
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: Gosh, you know what a blessing, because I know that that's not the case in all organizations and, yeah, it's definitely not a goodbye.
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: We're going to still be seeing each other Absolutely.
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Don't ask me anything.
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: Jenny gets to say that and then expect us to talk.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: And then Barry's looking at you and Josh and I go.
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: Well, this is the coolest about it.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: So, anyway, jenny, thank you, lamanda, miriam, everybody who supported Jenny and her role at Topeka Rescue Mission for 11 years and now stepping up to support Jenny in her next big assignment with Compassion Strategies and the Mobile Access Partnership, which will be moving forward and growing and partnering with even more folks in the future.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: Again, this Thursday, which will be the 22nd of May, starting at 10 o'clock in the morning, going until 1, you can come by for tours.
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: All the different agencies, I believe, will be there.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: We also have our unsheltered neighbors who will be there.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: Special press conference at 1030 with some different people who will be talking about their experience with MAP, as well as a very special announcement that we're going to make.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: That is this Thursday, the 22nd of May, at 10 to 11,.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: First, united Methodist Church, 6th and Topeka.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: So come on by if you just have a chance to drop by and check in.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: We would love to see you there and watch for what's going to happen next.
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: Jenny Falk, thank you for being here and thank you for our next great assignment ahead.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to Our Community, Our Mission, a podcast of the Topeka Rescue Mission.
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: If you'd like more information about TRM, you can go to trmonlineorg.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: That's trmonlineorg.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: Thank you for being a part of our community and our mission.