In this inspiring episode, we sit down with LeChelle Redd, who transitioned from a successful corporate marketing career to become a passionate nonprofit workforce development professional in the Sandtown community. LeChelle shares the story behind the founding of the Faith and Work Center, highlighting the unique challenges faced by the community and the critical role of integrating faith and mental health support into their services.

Throughout the conversation, LeChelle emphasizes the importance of listening and building trust within urban communities. She also reflects on her aspirations for creating a selfless legacy that positively impacts lives. Tune in to hear LeChelle’s heartfelt journey and her vision for a brighter future in Sandtown.

Well, my guest today is Lashow Reed. How you doing?

am great. I am great today. Thanks so much for asking. It is Leeshout Red. I know, I know, I know.

That's pretty cool. It's a unique name. have not seen it. It's like my name when I have it spelled out. No one has ever pronounced it properly. So I just go by Keith so they don't mess it up anymore.

Okay, okay, well I call you pastor.

There you go. So tell us a little bit about your background so we get to know you a little bit more.

So I am a native of New York. My family moved to Baltimore right around my high school age. So I went to Western High School and I'm a graduate of Towson State University. And as crazy as it sounds, I worked for many, years as a director of marketing for a mortgage company, a Fortune 500 mortgage company. And somewhere along the line that work became extremely unfulfilling.

and I knew that I was looking for something else and fell into the doors of this tiny nonprofit in East Baltimore and that started the journey. So that what I just gave you, falling in the doors of that tiny nonprofit was well over 23 years ago.

So I've been a nonprofit workforce development professional for 23 plus years. And which is strange because I'm only 25. So I started when I was two. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

I could tell that, I could tell that, yeah. That's so cool. So I love to ask my guests this question. It's my favorite question to open up our conversation. What is the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Listen twice as much as you talk.

okay.

Best piece of advice ever. Listen. Listen. Listen. Which is something I do every day. I think it's the key to my success in nonprofit is that I'm a great listener.

It is really critical, especially when you're working with people who are in need. One of the most frustrating things I had as a pastor was when I'm working in under-resourced communities and somebody comes in as the expert and they got all the answers. And I'm like, have you even talked to the people you're trying to help before you come in with all these answers? And they're like, no, I know what's best. I got this degree, I got all this experience. I'm like...

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Uh-uh.

Yeah, but that's not what they need. like you're, was so funny, I was talking to a guy who runs a homeless shelter in Michigan and he decided they were gonna do something really special for the men who were there. So they went out and got these big, juicy rib-eyes to serve to the men and the men didn't like them. They just sat there. He's like, well, why aren't you guys eating? This is prime beef. This is grade A stuff. He's like, we don't have any teeth.

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-mm.

We can't chew this. So it's like, if you had listened, it would have made sense that this was not a great idea for people who don't have teeth.

Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. Yes, it brings me to when we get there, we will hopefully we'll have a little bit of conversation to discuss the shift from the earlier concept, which was the candy to this multi-layer community center that is impacting this amazing community that I love so much. So hopefully we'll get there.

So let's talk about the founding of Faith and Work, the center. Tell us what led you, what was a brain child for this nonprofit?

Mm-hmm.

Sure, so the brainchild who now works for the district is Pastor Martin Schulteis and when I say his name I get so warm and fuzzy. He is a near and dear friend of mine, a courageous, God-led individual. He is my pastor.

even though he is not pastoring now, but he is a person that I admire and have great respect for. And during the uprising, which was the time that Freddie Gray unfortunately passed away, the city was in shambles, specifically this community was in shambles. So he and a group of pastors, they decided to do a prayer walk throughout Sandtown. At that time, I was just a parent. My daughter was a student at Emmanuel Lutheran, which was the school that pastor pastor.

But he and I had conversations about my workforce development experience expertise, whatever you want to call it and I think at that time he wanted to do something and He spent a significant amount of time in the community and what he heard was What many of us thought we heard that there was a group of individuals? primarily African American underserved males that

that needed to connect to employment. And so there was this concept of the social enterprise piece that was on the table. It was supported and it was this, it was a bunch of, woo, this could be the thing. And I don't wanna get too far into that conversation. So to answer your question, he is the brainchild. I came on probably,

Maybe 10 months after they decided that this was the one to be the thing. And as you see via camera, to those of you who don't see me and just hear my voice, I am a shaker-upper. I like to challenge ideas and get to the root of it. I like to discover why are we responding like this? What is fueling this decision? Is it sustainable?

specifically because of my 20 plus years of experience in the nonprofit field. So that is how we met. He is the brain child that unfortunately is no longer here. Like I said, he works for the district, but the nonprofits in great hands nonetheless.

Great. I'm always curious about individual communities because I served in the Detroit area, inner city St. Louis, Chicago. Every single urban center is different and unique. There are some similarities, but there are unique challenges. So what are the unique challenges you ran across in Sandtown and Winchester community that your nonprofit was trying to address?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

So that's such a hard question to someone who has never seen SANTOWN. So I'll try to paint this picture to the listeners and the people that are viewing this nonprofit and even to you. SANTOWN Winchester, I wish I can say it is like other nonprofits. I've traveled across the country and have done a great amount of research on urban pockets. And this particular community is so...

unique, strange, it's, it's, sometimes it just overwhelms me with sadness. The community is intentionally resource starved. the community center is, we are in a food desert. We go probably a couple of miles to the nearest pharmacy. The...

average household houses anywhere between six and nine persons in a two to three bedroom home, multi-generations. The average last grade completed for 18 to 31 is anywhere between four and six.

We have a large percentage of ex-offenders returning back into our community. And more importantly, my youth program, my sixth graders are reading on a first grade reading level. So this is the definition of urban poverty.

I would tell people, don't look on the computer if you're curious, then come and see, come and see. It's really interesting.

I'm curious, as you look at the history of Sandtown, when was a shift that things got to the point, or began to take that downward spiral? Because I know when I came to Detroit, I could mark the event that led to Detroit's downfall. Once a very proud, prosperous city. After the riots of 68, the city was literally on fire and never recovered from 1968.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Now certain blocks in Detroit because Detroit was kind of a block city. So you go block to block and it may be depending upon the block community. It may be a wonderful beautiful block. The next block down could look like you went to a war zone. So what led to Sandtown's turn downward spiral? What means there's some event that kind of created that?

Mm-hmm.

That's a really interesting question. I love history and I love to research. And I came across this article that was written in 2022. I don't know the journalist's name. I'll find it and then I'll send it to you so you can attach it to this podcast. But the journalist said that as he was touring Sandtown, it looked identical to the way Sandtown looked.

the riots from Martin Luther King's unfortunate assassination. So nothing's changed. Time has changed, right? The date on our calendar, even our phone has changed, but the community has not changed. So I stay away from those questions because I warned you that I'm a shaker. So I don't wanna shake things up too much, but it looks identical.

It's always been Sandtown on the side of not having. So this Pacific Community Center and the way we do things and the services that are being offered in this community mean the world to the community. Without it, then what?

Right. I know when I was a parish pastor, especially in urban areas, seemed like, especially in Detroit, the problem seemed so enormous that it was almost overwhelming. You chose to start working on workforce development. Why did you pick that area to focus on versus some other area of need? Just curious why that

So I am a credentialed and certified case manager. So workforce development is not the end all to be all. If you ever speak to someone in these urban pockets, like I said, I've worked in Baltimore in nonprofit for 20 plus years. I've never met a person.

in my travels that says, LeShelle, I can't find a job. The issue is always, I can't keep the job. And so there is more than likely some pre-existing trauma, some lack of coping skills, some issues that exist that they need help with. just to kind of grab our listeners, we can say workforce development, but that's not my angle. My angle is to help a person discover how much God loves them. That's my angle. That's number one.

And two, to deal with the things that are on the table that could help them to sustain employment. As we are traveling throughout our case management journey, pastor, the job becomes not the thing. The healing is the thing. The relationship with Christ becomes the thing. If you've lived in a community like this, you would think that

This is God's way of sentencing you for something that you've done in your lifetime.

And then you meet this crazy Haitian lady, me, and I tell you that that's not true. That's not true. God loves you. God doesn't promise you peaceful. He promised you peace. And so when you begin to journey, right? When you begin to become curious and begin to really nibble on that bait, so many other things are discovered that the job is just like, yeah, great, but you walk away knowing. So that isn't the it.

The relationship with God is really the end.

curious as you do this work in this very important community, what do you hope the impact is of the work you're doing has on that community? it's like I said, it's an enormous, enormous importance for that community, but it's also a ministry. what are you hoping you can try, how do you hope you transform the people you work

I don't, I, I, I am.

Hope is reassured every day when I...

pull up in the community and I have children and adults waiting on the steps. I get to work at 732 literally every single day. And I pull up and I have people saying, Ms. Leeshaw are you ready to pray? Because they know that's a part of their day. Or when I have children saying, I did a great thing. Instead of me responding with violence, I went in the corner and I said my prayers. Or when people come into the community and they say,

Can I come and get a new daily bread or can I come and get a new Bible because my Bible was torn? That's what I'm hoping. The impact is wherever God is, we know things will change. It's bigger than us. No man, it's so ginormous, right? It's so ginormous that I'm incapable of doing more than God has allowed. God said, bring the good news and I'll do the rest.

So my workforce development experience and all of these credentials, I think I learned early on, they don't mean as much to God as they meant to me because I use them very little. I use them very little, but I default to the word of Christ every second of my day. Every second of my day.

that's amazing. So Faith in Work the Center is a full-service community center. What does that mean? What does a full-service community, because most of us don't have that around us. We have people that focus on certain, what does it mean for you and what does that look like in your community?

Sure. Sure.

So it's multi-layered. When you come in the first floor, there are clean uniforms for children. There is a food pantry. There are snacks for little ones in the community that just are hungry. And that's where the, that's the first floor where you, when you walk in, you see people visibly saying this.

place is different. It's something different about it because it's non-transactional. You take what you want, you take what you need, and while you're here, just know that God loves you. On the second floor or in addition to those services, there is case management. Case management is a tool that is used to help you organize the unorganized puzzle of your life. Of course, Christ-centered. And then there's a self-service computer lab that enables

enables our community to connect with some of these services. There's a good number of our community that are still parole obligated, probation officer obligated. You can link to your DSS entitlements, which is your food stamps and your cash. You can send an email or letter to your son or your husband that's incarcerated. So technology is the new thing, right? And it's now here in your community. You don't have to catch the bus to go downtown. You can walk around the corner.

And then that's also where our workforce development classes take place and in our men's rep and our youth rep and our women's rep. And then up here in my office is where we offer private counsel. Sometimes women and men have issues that they need to kind of discuss with you in their private time. And then in the back, we store all types of surplus goods, your private hygiene products, your things that you don't want to ask for in public. So it's so many different layers.

And then on Thursday, I got the crazy idea to launch something called Employment Express, which is yet another. We'll talk about that on the next podcast if you give me another invitation. But that's another piece. So there's virtually 14 to 15 different services being offered out of this building, and they're being offered well. They complement each other so well, and they complement this community so well.

One of the things I noticed that you also focus on is mental health referrals. Because I think sometimes we don't understand the role mental health or the issue of mental health plays in people in those communities feeling trapped, unable to survive, unable to thrive. How do you incorporate the mental health work that you do in increasing the overall wellness of the community?

Yes.

So our mental health component is an absolute necessity. We don't begin to pretend as if trauma, any form of trauma, either you were a direct victim or a perpetrator or in the room when the things were being done, it does have some residual effects. So it is a part of our.

core process and our community understands because I tell them that my success or what you see and you define as success is as a result of laying on the couch for some time and helping to sort out some of the things in my life and things that I could not, I thought that I couldn't overcome. mental health is not frowned upon because it is not used as an excuse to, okay, I can't help you because we need you to go and get

mental health. No, we all go together. Everybody goes on the same day. We don't see the same clinician and then we debrief and talk about it and what it is doing. The University of Maryland, which is the mental health component that we use. They have such an amazing way of doing what they do professionally that it is imparting so many useful coping skills that we come back and our groups and we share the things that we're learning about ourself about our

environment about our interaction with others and then

It is really, really, really, really working. When they go on interviews and let's just say they get a successful job and they get a successful job and they encounter a disgruntled colleague, they're able to utilize some of those coping skills that they just got from the clinician. So it is so useful. It is so useful. It's crazy because these are the same people that used to skip to do other things. Now we're skipping down the street to go and see our clinician.

It's crazy, I can't make this up.

You know, I love what you're doing, because one of the things I ran across most when I served in urban areas was it just seemed like there was a hopelessness in the community. And it seems like what you're doing is you're providing that gospel-centered ray of hope. And you talk a little bit about the fact that you integrate faith into everything that you do in all your programs. When you started that, how was that received in the community? Because everybody is not a believer, but how was that received?

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

So not, how was I received? like I said, I've been around for a very long time. And so when I worked in secular employment, I can be extremely honest. I wouldn't necessarily say I was a tyrant, but I had pretty strong views and pretty strong convictions and I was non-negotiable. And so I'm coming back into a community that knew me as a secular director.

And now I'm coming back as a newly changed, transformed, Lutheran, executive director who wants to love on you. And so the shift in me caused the community to one. Initially they said, my mate name is Jones, they said, is it Miss Jones lose her mind? Like, is she crazy?

And I said, what I can tell you is you can have had the encounters with Christ that I have had over my life and not feel changed and not want to share how good God has been in my life with others. So I think that God has blessed

all of us with gifts and my gift is just being able to have extremely vulnerable conversations with people and give them room to digest. I don't want to force feed you who Christ is or that Christ loves you but I want to begin to just drop that seed and watch what God is doing. So I came out here with

Christ and it has just been

an amazing thing to watch develop. When I came, Pastor Martin Schulteis and I would walk the community and he would walk with his collar on so they knew that.

Look, I'm thinking about our walks. They knew that.

God is present in this community and they received it. So contrary to what people believe, there's a huge respect for God in urban communities. There's a lack of understanding of.

how God still loves me and I have to live like this. I think in our urban, the typical urban churches, we preach prosperity preaching. If you do this, then God gonna bless you with this. And if you, I mean, I've been a victim of it. Give your last $50, I promise you the Lord gonna bless you. In fact, if you get Pastor Martin Shottis on the phone, he will tell you when he walked to my car.

to invite me to a meeting to discuss this thing, I told him, I said, okay, I'll call you later, I need to go. I had just given my last $100 to a church that I was going to, and the pastor promised that the person that ties the extra hundred will receive a big money blessing. And I needed this money blessing, so I needed to go home.

because it was coming FedEx, UPS, I don't know how it was coming, but I knew it was coming. And so you think of a community that has heard that for so long. And so we were the two people that could potentially give them the answers. And my answer has was and has always been, God loves you. He does not promise you peaceful.

He promised you peace. So, that's just it. It's been easy because they see the change in me. I'm still spicy, but not as spicy.

I want to go back to what you just said, because I think that is so critical in ministering in those kind of communities. This idea of giving false hope by using God's word as a carrot. That if you do this, dang little people said, God's going to do that. And then their life doesn't change because you dangled a false carrot over their head and it's not what happens. So you got to be very careful with your preaching.

that you're not either tone deaf, that you're ignoring the problems that people are facing, and the word of God is not a magic pill to make your life, as Jesus said, better, but to give you inner peace that may not change your situation immediately or ever, but you have someone to rely on. And so that's one of things I always tried to do when I was in my preaching was remind people that we have to make sure we preach a Jesus with skin on.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

not a mythical Jesus, because people need to hear a real Jesus. And so in your work, how do you walk that line of, we're here to help you, but it's gonna be, it may take a while for your life to look different.

Mm-hmm.

I don't think I've ever had that conversation. One of the things I tell people is I am Lutheran and I'm Lutheran through and through. And the reason why I am Lutheran is because I've told... So there's a couple of people that I absolutely adore. And one of them is President Harmon and Pastor Martin Schultz-Heiss. And they've heard me say this.

Right.

and they laugh and I say the Lutheran denomination is all faith and no fluff, right? And I can't, I would only hope, my only hope is that we as Lutherans kind of feel responsible to share that same all faith and no fluff into urban pockets like this because it can change things. That is what can change. You just said, you

Right.

your life may never change, but it will. It will, it can. If I knew then that God promised me peace and not peaceful, I would have experienced this joy years ago. Like years ago, and that changes. That to me, this joy makes me want to love, leap, laugh.

and live versus exist and be angry and self-destruct and hurt others. I was there. I am a product of a single mother. I'm the youngest of three. So some of these circumstances that exist in Sandtown, I lived through, but I lived through very angry because I said, I'm going to church and you keep preaching and I keep putting my little ties and you keep saying,

that this is going to happen. So now I am not only angry with you, I'm angry with God because God ain't even telling me what I need to do to change because I listen to direction. If you tell me don't do this, don't do this, don't do that, and this will change, then I'm not gonna do it. I was on the typical urban Christian church train for a very long time, a very long time.

where I almost rolled my pennies to put my tides in. And I did that for a very long time. And no one ever told me that the word never says peaceful, he promises peace. So it will change. And in addition to that, this little section, this mega, I call it little, but it's a mega section of Sandtown has changed. It has changed.

I can show them, say, hold on, let me go back to some of, because I have seven years of conversation with Pastor Sholtize. Seven years of notes, seven years of asking him, show me where. And he would show me and I would write it down. So everything that I'm telling you is in the book, so I'm not making it up. And so it renews one's faith. And when your faith is renewed and you begin to know that he has not left you.

Things change. So I think that these things that one would think need to change before we validate that God is changing. These buildings come and go. These cars come and go. Money comes and goes. Everything comes and goes, but the peace of God is, it just is. It just is. We have this thing when I tell people, they hear me say it all the time. Grace is sufficient.

Right.

for me, especially today, is sufficient for me.

So you, Faith and Works, I'm sure has many partners that you've connected with. So who are some of the partners that support the work you do?

My fan favorite is Emmanuel Lutheran Church, which is my home church. They are an extremely important piece to, I call them our Framley. They are our big sibling. They are always there whenever we need prayer or things or prayer or things. And then we have an amazing partnership with St. Andrew's, which is another Lutheran church in Montgomery County.

And then we have other secular funders, but the faith-based support, have LWML, the women's group. Again, the district is extremely supportive to what's being done here. And our partnership Rolodex is extremely evolving. I always highlight our faith-based partners because...

Again, the money is important, right? It keeps the lights on, the heats on, the air on, but the prayers is what sustains us. So the faith-based partnerships are the ones that mean the most. We have been able to have, this year will be our eighth or seventh year annual coat and toy drive on December the 14th. That is because of our partners. We just celebrated our seventh annual back to school drive. That is because of our partners.

And those are all churches that come together and support by way of book bags, school supplies, coats and toys for the kids. University of Maryland for our mental health support, Life Bridge, who is also a partner. We have tons of partners. We have tons of partners. have a Rolodex. I just said tons of partners because I forgot them all. Charge it to my head, not my heart.

Not a problem. Is there a particular story that, from your years of doing this, that stands out as, this is why we do this?

years ago I was picking my daughter up from school and still daylight it was probably not even 330 and I got a call that a young lady and her daughter and son was sitting on the steps and she was waiting for me and I think that particular day I don't know if I had intention to come back to work but I did and she had fled an abusive situation and

she was just in the community saying she needed to find someone to help her. And the community sent her here. And I got back here within an hour and a half. in between that time, Pastor Schultz Heiss' wife went up in the attic and got some clothes that were too small. So we were able to clothe the children. But I say that to say,

The why for me was validated when the community deemed us a credible messenger and they did the work for us. They was able to identify a person that needed help and they said without question you need to go here because they will help you. And that is my why. That's my why.

I love that. With your experience of starting a faith-based group, is there some advice you'd have for somebody else who's considering doing something like that, a faith-based nonprofit?

Listen twice as much as you talk communities like this have

trust it before and they are reluctant to trust again. So you've got to, we call them immediate wins. When we first got to this community, there was a ton of things that we needed to do. They were small things to us, but they were major things to the community. And that just showed the community that we're here. We're here to help. We're not here to take away. And we're here for the long call. And so realize that

Urban communities like this have been tinkered with for a very long time. And so there is a ton of apprehension, but there is still hope. And erase the timeline. Erase the timeline. know, erase the timeline. Just be willing to let God lead. Truly let God lead. God decreases me every day. That's my prayer every day. God decrease me and increase you. And he does that every single day. That's my little tidbit.

That's great. So I love to ask my guests this question as we kind of wrap this up because it's been a great conversation. What do you want your legacy to be?

Selfless. That's who I am. That's what I breathe. I cannot stop it. It is something that I sometimes sit in my office and I cry because sometimes the selfless get overlooked, but God always whispers and say, I see you. Okay. I see you. So my legacy, I pray continues to be selfless and persevere.

through

the rough tides of urban nonprofit and impact, true impact. It's tough out here. And so when I take my last walk and I kiss my last forehead, because that's my signature, and I hug my last client, I would pray that whomever inherits this amazing body of work is as selfless as I am.

amazing. How can listeners connect with you and support your work there?

So I love an email. I, well, I'll give you my email. It's Lichelle, L-E-C-H-E-L-L-E-5-3 at gmail.com. Or you can call me. I love a good call. 4435615210. Or you can call the office 4439631330. In just a few short days, I am relaunching the website until the website will be up. I will circle back to Pastor Haney and he can hopefully.

tag it to this podcast, but you can always call me, email me. And then we have a Faith and Work YouTube. I do this weekly car chronicles or office chronicles and I update the listeners and subscribers to what's going on. Urban Nonprofit, again, it is so interesting and I celebrate everything. And even some of the things that I'm not so successful at are some of the biggest teachable moments.

that has always been and will continue to be when you put God first. So God is at the center of this thing. He's at the center, Pastor Haney.

Always. Well, thank you for taking the time and sharing what you're doing and the blessings on the work that you're doing and the impact you're having in the community because it is so needed. And I love your selfless nature and the work that you do to pour into people's lives. We need more people like you doing that in these communities.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much. God bless you all.

Alright have a great one.

Bye!