COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT
Granada Heights Friends Church
When I stepped into Starbucks earlier in the year to meet with a friend and a pastor from her church, I had no idea of the opportunity that was going to unfold. We were meeting to discuss how to help equip Granada Heights Friends Church to become Trauma-Informed so that their staff and volunteers would be able to better serve the congregation and the surrounding community. This is a pretty normal part of what I do as the Trauma Specialist at OC United, so after an hour of unpacking the vision of the RESPITE program and discussing options that would meet their needs, I was looking forward to hearing back from the team about what spring date they would be booking for me come present one of our workshops.
Imagine my delight and surprise when I heard that they were interested in hosting the 2019 RESPITE Conference in October as part of their fall missions program! We hadn’t even discussed this option in our meeting and it was such a great blessing as I had been looking for a venue and the one I had been reaching out to hadn’t responded, so it was thrilling to experience church leadership and staff that were truly committed and exited to make an impact in this way.
But it didn’t stop there; when we recently toured the facility to figure out some logistics, the missions pastor interjected at the beginning of the conversation and said, “just tell us what you need. We’ll give you everything you need” and proceeded to highlight all of the ways that they were ready and willing to serve us and the attendees. Granada Heights Friends Church is providing the space, tech needs, facilities support, and food for the day, truly partnering with us to provide a robust and impactful event that will help families and communities to develop healing environments. Thank you, Granada Heights!
RENAE DUPUIS
Trauma-Specialist, Director of the RESPITE Program
[email protected]
We hope you will join us
for the 2019 RESPITE Conference!
Learn more about the impacts of trauma through an informative and interactive day of training with education, resources, and tools that will equip you and your environment to serve the most vulnerable among us.