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The Resurrection House is pleased to announce the appointment of Joe Reuth as its next Executive Director. He takes over from interim Executive Director Mason Ayres, who has served in the role for the past two years.

“Mason has done an outstanding job in getting us prepared to expand our mission. During his tenure, he has doubled the number of volunteers serving our clients, expanded our days and hours, and increased the number of services we offer,” said Father Charleston Wilson, Resurrection House Board President. “As a proven leader, Mason has the rare combination of vision and pragmatism, which resulted in major accomplishments during his leadership at Resurrection House.”

Joe comes to Resurrection House from the private sector with a successful business background and more than a decade of non-profit work with various Christian organizations, including the Church of the Redeemer, one of Resurrection House’s founding churches. He has served as mission leader for the church’s Dominican Republic missions since 2018 and serves on the board of The Dominican Development Group, who partners with the Dominican Episcopal Church to facilitate mission teams and coordinate resources to aid in their work.

“We are thrilled Joe is going to be leading the Resurrection House team. He was chosen because of his faith, compassion and entrepreneurial spirit,” said Father Wilson. “We believe all three will be required in order to lead us into our next chapter of growth.”

Joe’s first day at Resurrection House will be Monday, June 16. Mason will remain with Resurrection House until Joe has settled into his new position.

Resurrection House Operations Manager Joe Lucero knows first-hand what it’s like to be hungry and homeless. He had those experiences during his childhood. Now, at age 82, he’s helping others who are facing similar challenges.

“I felt like I had to pay it forward,” Joe said. “This isn’t a job to me. It’s a calling. I can’t get here fast enough in the morning.”

Actually, it wasn’t a job for Joe at first. He started at Resurrection House as a volunteer, becoming the Volunteer Coordinator after three years, and now serving as Operations Manager.

Even before he became a staff member, Joe started making improvements. He initiated the idea of police presence at Resurrection House as soon as he started volunteering. Since then, he has advocated for other positive changes and impacted the lives of hundreds of our clients.

“Living on the streets can be hard and scary. We give our clients ‘a soft place to land’ each day. A place where they know they can receive daily living essentials like meals, showers, restrooms or clean clothes – things that most of us take for granted,” he said.

Joe places the highest value on his direct contact with our clients, each of whom he greets by name every morning when he checks them in. “It’s the most important thing they own,” he said.

He also has a special place in his heart for veterans. Early one morning, Joe discovered a veteran sleeping in a dry dumpster. He immediately brought him into Resurrection House before it opened and took care of his needs. Joe ensures that every veteran who enters through our doors accesses all the local programs available for them, including housing assistance and job connections.

“The challenges are many. The rewards are few. Taking care of our clients is why I’m here, especially when I can help a veteran,” Joe said.

He says he doesn’t plan to retire anytime soon – or ever. “I am so proud of what we’ve accomplished here,” Joe said. “I enjoy every minute of it.”

of the items most requested by Resurrection House’s clients each day are sneakers, especially from our male clients. So, it was only fitting that Manasota Track Club would host a shoe drive to help us increase our sneaker inventory.

Founded in 1975, Manasota Track Club primarily serves Manatee and Sarasota counties, helping local nonprofit organizations promote and manage their fundraising races. The club also hosts one race of its own each year.

Kelli Anderson, a former president of the 900-member club, said the collaboration between Resurrection House came about after Marc Cavaliere, a Resurrection House volunteer, gave a presentation to Manasota Track Club’s board of directors about hosting a shoe drive. That’s when they decided to ask participants in their annual race, Bill’s Beer Run, to bring gently used tennis and running shoes and donate them to Resurrection House.

Approximately 500 runners attended the race, and many of them came with donations. In fact, Manasota Track Club collected 14 boxes full, amounting to about 150 pairs of men’s and women’s shoes.

Thank you, Manasota Track Club, for helping us provide more sneakers for our clients!

Resurrection House is pleased to announce that the Sarasota County Sheriff ’s Office has joined our “Floor No More” program. The Sarasota County Homeless Outreach Team (HOT) began working with us in February.

The program provides previously homeless individuals with living essentials for their new house at move-in.

“We heard about the great things City of Sarasota HOT was doing for their clients through this program,” said Dawn Pomije, Case Manager with the Sarasota County Sheriff ’s Office. After meetings with representatives from Resurrection House and Soul Sisters, a local women’s ministry, the new partnership began.

In the few weeks since, the Sheriff ’s Office’s HOT has already collaborated with the “Floor No More” volunteers on several move-ins, with more on the horizon.

“There are certain items needed to help our clients make a smoother transition into housing that we can’t get through other providers,” Dawn said. “This program fills that gap.”

The “Floor No More” program does just that by donating necessities like bathroom and kitchen items.

“They’ve been instrumental in helping our clients,” she said.

One of Dawn’s favorite moments so far was when her team moved three older women into the same house. “We were able to get the Soul Sisters volunteers to meet the ladies and bring their move-in items,” she said. “They’re thriving. Now they have a place to call home. It was a happy day.”

Besides delivering housewares and hygiene products, the “Floor No More” program also brings a sense of belonging to the newly housed people.

“I think our clients have appreciated seeing a smiling face at the door on move-in day,” Dawn said. “It’s amazing how quickly they feel like they’re part of the community.”

If you are reading this, you most likely have what the United States Postal Service calls a “permanent address” where this very newsletter was mailed or forwarded, and you probably enjoy daily at least a modicum of what are commonly call creature comforts – a nice television, Wi-Fi, plenty of food in the refrigerator, and air-conditioning, for example. (This is all probably still true, even if you had some storm damage and were recently forced into a temporary setting.)

I have been recently reflecting on what we really mean when we use the word “home.” Home is way more than just where we lay our heads at night; home is a powerful metaphor indicative of deeper things. When someone says, “I can’t wait to get home,” he or she is talking about way more than just slipping into comfy clothes and watching Netflix. She means that home is defined by calm, comfort, and peace. “A home is a man’s castle” is an old English idiom that means we expect to feel most ourselves and most secure within the four walls of our own house. Winston Churchill went further, saying, “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.” (I am convinced Churchill must also have been thinking about how discombobulated I feel the first night on a trip staying in a hotel while trying to find
the bathroom in the dark!)

Imagine, however, you had no home whatsoever. Where would you find security, comfort, and peace if you
were homeless?

For many in our own beloved community, Resurrection House is, quite literally, their only construct of home, literal and metaphorical. The persons whom we serve, by the way, aren’t dropouts from Mars or Venus; they are fellow human beings just like you and me. They were created in, and still bear, the image of Almighty God. And Resurrection House is where they get a home-cooked meal, see the only friendly faces of the day, take a shower, do laundry and more.

As you look after and care about your own home after the storms, will you please, please consider looking after Resurrection House, too? It is not a cliché to say we cannot do this holy work without you. Would you consider digging deep this year-end, if you can, and make a first-time or another gift to Resurrection House?

Let me put all this on exceedingly personal terms. Where would you turn if you suddenly found yourself homeless? Resurrection House, of course.

Your servant,
(The Reverend) Charleston D. Wilson
Board President, Resurrection House

On Tuesday mornings Adrienne Watts usually welcomes clients as a volunteer. Now, her artwork greets everyone daily. A professional artist, she generously donated several of her paintings for
Resurrection House’s client dayroom.

Adrienne began her creative endeavors as a part-time watercolor artist, specializing in portraits and still lifes. Since retiring from her successful career in fi nance and real estate, she decided to try her hand at a new genre and medium.

“Because I was always drawn to abstract paintings in galleries and museums, I decided to try that style,” she says. “Th is decision required a switch from watercolor to acrylic paint, from working on paper to working on larger canvas and wood substrates and learning to handle new art materials.”

All her paintings at Resurrection House represent her abstract style. She donated them after the client dayroom’s makeover this summer.

“The soft yellow walls were a perfect match for several small square paintings I’d made over the last year and had in my inventory,” Adrienne says. “The largest painting, 4 ft. x 6 ft., was one I had in process and completed with the intention of complementing the interior and other smaller pieces I was donating.”

Her artwork is often on display at local galleries, and she also sells her pieces online. But she was pleased to give her pieces to Resurrection House.

“I did this because I think Resurrection House provides a great service to our community and it gives me happiness to share my artwork with the staff and clients,” Adrienne says. “It’s my hope that the peaceful intention behind and nature of the work contributes to the safe, comfortable feeling clients experience when they are within the walls of Resurrection House.”

Did you know that Resurrection House off ers barbering services once a week? Jerry Shuster has been helping our clients look their best for more than a decade.

Although he’s been a licensed barber since 1970, Jerry primarily cut family members’ hair until he began volunteering his services at Resurrection House. “I stayed busy with it, but not as a career,” he says.

Instead, Jerry spent 31 years as a police offi cer in Youngstown, Ohio. When he retired and moved to Sarasota, his neighbors who were also volunteers told him about Resurrection House. Th e previous barber had recently left, and they knew he had a barbering background. After visiting Resurrection House, Jerry decided to become a regular volunteer. Th at was over 13 years ago.

Since then, Jerry has become a popular person among our clients. He usually has a long signup list of clients every week, where he averages about 18 haircuts during his 3.5-hour shift.

Over the years he’s been at Resurrection House, Jerry has given many clients makeovers. “I like to call them transformations,” he says. When clients look in the mirror, “I think they’re even surprised themselves what they see.”

Jerry enjoys giving back by using his barbering skills. “It’s rewarding to be wanted and appreciated,” he says.

He encourages other barbers and beauticians to consider volunteering at Resurrection House.

If you have been to Resurrection House this summer, you probably have met our new office manager, Gayla Jones. She started with us in May, and she’s readily embracing her role.

“These past three months have been amazing,” she said.

Gayla’s career path began in government, first working with the Hallandale Beach police department for 22 years, and then acting as the clerk of courts supervisor for Sarasota County.

After four years there, she decided to make a change. “I can help more in the nonprofit realm,” she thought.

Gayla spent the next few years working at an at-risk facility for young males. That led her to taking a position as director of Drug Free Manatee. While there, she learned about Turning Points, a day center for
the homeless in Bradenton.

That’s when she realized she wanted to work with the homeless, and she found her next opportunity, as
office manager here at Resurrection House.

Gayla’s day-to-day job entails making sure all the administrative duties in the office are operating smoothly. She’s not one to stay tucked away in a back office though. She likes to come out on the floor and get to know our clients’ stories, and she enjoys helping wherever she’s needed.

Gayla likes to be hands-on especially in the kitchen where she enjoys serving. “I love the grateful responses you get from the clients when all you’re doing is handing them their plate.”

Gayla recalled a time when a client asked for her by name only to thank her simply for helping him locate
his lost cell phone. “Imagine the impact I could make after I’ve been here for a while,” she wondered.

She wants everyone to discover the scope of what we do for the local homeless community. “It’s important to me that those living on the streets can come to our door and we can help them. Everybody needs a chance, I’m just trying to do my part.”

In 2021, the City of Sarasota’s Homeless Outreach Team (H.O.T.) approached Resurrection House about helping those on the streets make a smoother transition into housing. After a lot of conversation back and forth, the “Floor No More” program was launched. This program helps ease both anxiety and financial burdens by providing homeless individuals with daily living essentials for their new house at move-in.

“It was the missing piece for people moving in,” said Dede Jones, Coordinator of Homeless Response for the City of Sarasota.

Resurrection House’s role in the “Floor No More” program is to purchase and provide these household items at move-in, which can be a huge undertaking. Over the past year, Resurrection House has partnered with a local women’s ministry, called Soul Sisters, who does the shopping and delivery of these items to the newly housed person.

“I absolutely love that these in-need people are getting off the street and we get to sprinkle them with extra love by buying all the things they need to get started,” said Anne Ayres, one of the Soul Sister volunteers.

These household items are hand-selected by the H.O.T. case managers and are unique to each client’s housing situation.

Thanks to the Soul Sister volunteers who gather extra details like color preferences, the individual can feel right at home immediately. “The Soul Sister crew has put more of a personal touch to it,” Dede said.

Anne finds every client and move-in is unique and special. She remembers one soon-to-be resident who was so grateful, that he even gave things back that he knew he couldn’t use, so that the next person could benefit from them.

“Our ministry is grateful to help out in this small way knowing what a big impact housing can have in helping someone get back on their feet” Anne said.

Resurrection House couldn’t accomplish everything we do for our clients without partners like Grace Community Church in Lakewood Ranch.

James Brost, a long-time Resurrection House volunteer and member of Grace Community Church, is heading up the church’s involvement with Resurrection House. James shared he was called into this role after being inspired one Sunday by his pastor’s sermon about the importance of caring for others. “That sparked a real passion in me,” James said. “I have a heart to help people who are less fortunate.”

Initially, James reached out to Grace’s outreach director, Michael Cason, about building a volunteer work force at the church to help Resurrection House return to serving our clients five days a week.

From there, Grace officially recognized Resurrection House as one of its community partners, meaning the church pledges to commit their time, talent, and treasure to select nonprofit organizations in the area.
James also started an outreach ministry within Grace where people can sign up to specifically serve Resurrection House.

So far this year, members of the outreach ministry have not only continued to volunteer on a weekly basis, but they also painted several areas within Resurrection House, which hadn’t been touched up in years. Grace supplied all the supplies and the people to do the work.

“We have some other projects already planned throughout the rest of the year,” James said. “Plus, we’re
actively looking at other ways we can make a difference.”

The ministry plans to paint more areas of the building, as well as coordinate a backpack drive in December.

Thank you, Grace Community Church, for your commitment to Resurrection House and our mission!