Support for this program is provided by the Weldon F Osborne Foundation.

The Schillhahn-Huskey Foundation.

And viewers like you.

Thank you.

On today's show we'll learn about two nonprofits that are making a difference in the lives of women.

One is a recovery based, sober living home.

The other provides services that empower women entering the workforce.

We're stronger together.

Chattanooga.

Stay tuned to learn more.

Welcome to Chattanooga.

Stronger.

Together.

I'm Barbara Mortar.

Scotty Bowman is joining us.

Scotty is the founder of launchpad, a 12 step sober living community for women in Chattanooga.

Welcome, Scott.

It's so nice to have you here with us today.

Thank you for having me.

Befor we get into all of the minutia, I want to learn your stor and why you started launchpad.

Well, I I'm a recovering addict myself.

I've been sober for 23 years.

Come January 17th.

That's that's quite a feat in the recovery world.

But, I was, addicted to cocaine.

And supplemented that with lot of other drugs and alcohol.

Marijuana?

Alcohol.

Mostly vodka.

Ecstasy.

Xanax.

I mean, it was just so compounded, all of those things together.

Back in the day, we call that kind of speed bowling.

You could get really high on the cocaine, and then you would use ecstasy or Xanax or hydrocodone to bring you down and level you out.

Also, alcohol being a depressant.

So I was constantly like, up and down.

And, you know, there came many times when I legitimately fel my heart was about to burst and I remember one time in particular that I thought, if I, if I take this next line of cocaine, it's going to kill me.

My heart was already racin and I thought, I'm going to die.

And I felt lik I needed to go to the hospital.

But from my knees, I reached up to my counter and got that last line of cocaine.

And then I hollered into at my roommate to come and take me to the hospital.

She was asleep and I was like, is that not crazy enough?

And you would think that that would do it, but that didn't do it.

I went on for another nine months.

I think is an alcohol and drugs and, to the point where a day came where I thought I just a light bulb came on and I had this we call it a moment of clarity and I that's a really I don't want to die.

Yeah.

And and so I started taking the steps to get into treatment and, the next seven years wer very difficult, especially on.

And businesses that served alcohol.

But but I got through that and immediately coming and out of treatment, the camaraderie I felt from living in a sober living house really guided me to want to to build my own sober living houses eventually.

And when we started, I had 14 women in our home and eight of us made it for eight years, which is unheard of.

Yeah, three of us out of those 14 have made it 23 years and I just think it's so important to learn how to to live your life with other women and building other women up and start to, to give some of your own gifts to other women.

Right.

Well, and I love the fact that, you know, you're sharing your story with me and with our viewers, but the fact that you went through the sober living home and you came out and you 23 years later you still have those struggles.

So you know what?

These excuse me, these women are going through and you know what it's like to they have to learn to love themselves before the can accept everyone else's love.

And once an addict even though you may be 23 years, you're always going to hav that little bit of temptation.

There's always going to be those struggles.

And so what you're providing at Launch Pad is a restart.

Yes.

It's stop the vicious cycle that you're at.

And let's get physically, mentally, spiritually, you know whatever sober thinking straight.

And living the a life that' fulfilling and not just exist.

It's a restart.

And also it's a foundation.

It's the foundation that we missed as addicts, as children and teens and young adults.

We didn't have that foundation.

So we're trying to to heal the whole woman.

I've always said that, that the the woman is the backbone of the American family.

And if we heal the woman, we heal the family.

So tell me about launchpa and the programs that you offer.

Well, we started with one sober living house, and that's all we were going to do.

And, I had one little resident manager that lived on site and was on, payroll, and, we were jus that's all we were going to do.

And, it jus I assembled a board of directors of my favorit and best friends that I thought would just serve for me without really having.

I didn't even think about their ambitions.

But once we got the one house and we had procured some other properties and and they they like to blame me for fas tracking because I like to move and shake.

But really, the they wanted it as much as I did.

And so we grew to five houses exactly four years.

We opened our first one in June of 2020, our second in June of 22, and then we opened three more in June of 24.

So I'm sorry, June 23rd.

And now it' basically just past June of 24.

And honestly, we could use one more house.

We are full to the brim.

We have.

We offer 50 beds and five houses.

Each house is third bedroom, three bath.

And we are full.

We're officially full, and we're putting people on a waitlist.

first of al where do these women come from.

Where do you get them in.

What's the area of coverage that you have?

We cover the tri state area Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama.

We, bring women in from treatment centers like focus status.

There's a couple down in Atlanta.

This one women to us.

Bradford.

Any any retreat treatment center around the tri state area.

Most people know about us now.

We're getting well known because we're a little more stringent than some of the, sober living houses, and we require more accountability.

And in the beginning, that's kind of what we need.

I needed that.

I mean, I know I came out of treatment and, I told all my friends how to look for my sons.

I was pretty much given them my tells.

And they would confront me from time to time.

So those, those permissions to be accountable to really lets people know you want to get sober.

But we also have been approved by Georgia and Tennessee State Parole Board.

So we bring women coming out of prison, and we, we, partnership with Project Return here in town, and we get women kind of back on their fee and reintegrated into society.

So that's a that's a big deal to be approved by the, the board of the parole boards and in the two state.

Yeah, I know that you, worke very closely with Judgment Day.

We do.

We also get women from recovery court.

Judge.

Judge McVay loves us becaus he he likes our accountability.

And we love judge McVay because he saves us money because they have to be drug tested in drug court.

Recovery court they call it.

So they already have to get dru tested every Friday if they're part of recovery court.

And we've had at least a dozen women over the last two years graduate from recovery court that were living with us.

Well I love the fact that, you know, you make them go through all of this, hold them accountable, have a sponsor.

They have to work.

They have to pay rent.

You make them do community service.

So you have to get back in the communit and see what others are doing.

But so when we look at how viewers could get involved, you have the closets.

So these women need, clothing.

They come in barely with just what they have on this.

So what what all would you need in your closet?

So we we accept clothing, and we try to swap it out for winter and summe and put some in storage, but all sizes, really, and we don't need all like nice clothes.

They don't get enough t shirts and blue jeans.

And you know, it'd be nic just to have some tooling around clothes for when they're off work.

And it's difficult for them to get professional jobs starting out, so jeans and t shirts are always a welcome thing.

We have what we call the basics closet as well.

That is, that's some entry level food.

They come to us without any food.

We try to get them on food stamps.

Not everybody qualifies as most do originally until they get a job.

But we have a food pantry now with things like, multigrain fruit bars for the morning and fruit cups and ramen noodles.

They love that easy kind of stuff.

Macaroni and cheese.

We have some thing in the freezer, hamburger meat and some stuff like that.

So donations of small amounts of money help us with that.

And also in our basic close is unopened drawers and panties.

People overloo the need for under clothing and, you know, and we don't ever want to sound ungrateful, but we just won't use used undergarments.

So if if you wanted to donate multiple sizes of packs of panties and bras, that's always welcome.

We don't have enough of those things.

Especially especially bras.

That's difficult for the women, you know, because thei our sizes change as we fluctuate and so that's, that's some o the easy stuff that you can do.

And of course, when we build another house, because I'm always looking that we will build a sixth house.

And we are going to build quad triplexes.

So when we build those things, we will usually put out a Facebook ads and ask fo some furnishings, some bedding.

We use our twin beds so we can always take twin bedding and it put it as a stock.

Women come in and out and they inadvertently take things like clothes hampers, and, shower bags and trees, the tea trees to go in their closet, things like that.

We can always use, any twin bedding and pillows.

So.

But we ask for furniture only when we are needing it because we don't have anywhere to store it otherwise.

And then often, we'll have a girl that's graduatin and we'll put a Facebook, asked for her to get some furniture to fill her apartment.

So our, our our hope for the quad triplexes is that at least we're going to build for at least 16 of our graduates.

Could go into affordable housing through affordable housing, while they continue to save money toward the purchase of their own home.

And that program, we'r thinking, will be a three year maximum to really teach them financial planning, get them involved with, habitat for humanity, where they can put in some sweat equity and put their own downpayment through the sweat equity o their own home through habitat for humanity.

Yeah, Scotty.

Thank you for sharing your story and for taking your life experiences and helping women today to overcome all the things that are bothering them and what caused the addiction, and actually learning to love themselves and be loved by others.

So thank you so much.

Thank you so much for having me.

Up next, we'll have Kelly Logan from dress for Success Chattanooga.

You don't want to miss it, so stay with us.

We want to know how you serve your community.

Send us photos or videos of you or your family volunteering, and we may feature it on a future episode.

Email stronger@wtcitv.org or use the hashtag STRONGERWTCI on social media.

Welcome back.

Kelly Logan is joining us.

She is the vice president of the board at dress for success, Chattanooga.

This organization empowers women to achieve economic independence by providing a network of resources and support.

Welcome, Kelly.

I'm so glad that you're joining me today.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

Oh, you're more than welcome.

Tell me, what is dress for success?

Chattanooga.

And how did it get started?

So dress for success started originally in 1997 by a woma by the name of Nancy Loveland.

She received a $5,000, inheritance from her great grandfather.

And she decided to do something with that particular with that money.

So she started this wonderful organization in the basement of a church in Manhattan with the assistance of some nuns and it has just grown, exponentially by that from Chattanooga.

It actually began with one Nita Ingram, who has started a couple of other dress for success.

So I believe she started dress for Success London.

But she wanted to bring it home because when Nita Ingra is originally from Chattanooga.

So she wanted to bring it into Chattanooga, and she gave me her a call, and we just kind of worked together around about 2019.

And we are actually the first and only, dress for success affiliate to launch during Covid, which was 2020.

We did a lot of, services, virtually for women.

So there was some resume writing.

We even gave them gift card and walk them through the mall in order to assist them with getting some clothes.

But we still wanted to make sure that our women in Chattanooga were supported.

And, around about 2021, we got our first boutique, and it is located on 2201 Blackford Street.

It is a beautiful building.

It is, full of crystal and full of glitter and full of fur.

So when a woman walks in there, it is just a beautiful experience.

And it's a transformative experience, for he in getting these new outfit and getting ready for this interview that she's about to do.

And I will have to admit, Wanda, Wanita Ingram was Miss Universe.

That's correct.

Juanit Ingram was Miss Universe 2022.

It was a wonderful experience for her.

But yes, she is Mrs. Universe and the fact that she's taking this, she started in London and then she brought it home to Chattanooga, and and she's building others to.

I think it's amazing.

And I love the fact that you call it a boutique.

It's not a resale store.

It's not just a shop, it's a boutique.

And the reason you call it a boutique is the reason it's a boutiqu is because that is what it is.

It is, a transformative experience.

Every woman deserves the dignity of going into a store, picking out her clothes, feeling beautiful while she's doing it.

Coming in one particular way and leaving out glamorous and excited about the worl that she's about to enter into.

And that is what this is all about.

We want to make sure that this particular, tha every woman that walks through our doors walks out feelin 1,000% better about themselves and just optimistic about their future.

So, it's it's the resume writing.

You have the workshop, which was walk me through a workshop.

What does that entail?

So, not only do we assist you with clothes, but we also do interview prep, resume writing to make sure that you are prepared in every aspect of this particular interview that you're about to get.

So we're asking you all the questions that you may be asked.

We're giving you tips o how to answer those questions.

The same with your resume.

So you give us your resume.

We're going to go through it kind of correct some errors, maybe reword some things and talk talk.

You through that preparatio of getting that resume together.

Also we're instilling confidence in you this entire time.

That is what really gets the job.

Everyone knows is not the outfit is the confidence.

And so giving you this practice of these questions and walking you through your resume, we are giving you this particular confidence that you're going to need in order to get that job.

And so the top job that they have depends on the type of clothing that you help them t maybe select for the interview and everything.

So what did they get in in the outfit so that the outfit could be consist of anything.

So your original interview, we do want you to look a particular way.

We do typically try to push that business professional.

However depending on the job and that that office environment, that may be a very different look for you.

So we will give you a week's worth of clothing once you get that job.

Wow.

So if if your jo is more of a casual atmosphere, that might just be some slacks and a couple of, blouses.

If you have a very casual atmosphere, there could be jeans and tennis shoes, but we're trying to give you everything.

So we want to make sure that you have the purse the shoes, the rings, the the, the jewelry, everything that you need in order to be successful in your position and look the part of what you what you're now embarking.

Well, so how did these women come to you?

The most of the women that are coming to us are, referred to us from other nonprofits.

So we do have partnerships with other nonprofits, and they are sending us women that need whatever assistance they may.

They might not necessarily be clothing.

It may just be resume writing.

It may just be interview prep.

We've also gone into several, nonprofits and done like speeches and those types of things to assist with, whatever they're, they're working on in that particular week.

So we, we do everything in order to make sure that every woman is feeling the wa that they need to feel, because some of these women are coming in, could have been like home homemakers and maybe gotten out of an abusive relationship.

And they're living in, you know a home or something like that.

And now they need to get into the workforce.

Some of them may be, trying to transition from I lost my job and now I need to fin something else and and whatever.

Not only are yo clothing them outwardly, you're also working on them inwardl with their their self-respect.

And, and I remember you talking earlier about when a woman comes out dressed and you have a runway.

We do in our, in our boutique we have a runway that's, that's lit.

And you're walking towards this mirror and just watching that woman as she's walking towards this mirror seeing herself in this new way.

It's it's an amazing experienc just even from my perspective, because you can see he changing her mind about herself.

We all have been through seasons where we are unemployed for whatever reason, and being unemployed can pay some terrible tricks on your mind.

I have been unemployed.

I was, I was, let go from my position because our position was eliminated.

And I was out of wor for an extended period of time.

Interviews, resumes and not getting callbacks.

Those types of thing can really wear on you mentally.

And we are here to make sure that you don't have those, or at least give you some tools to fight against those conversations that your brain is having with itself.

Right?

And while you were unemployed, you were actually at dress for success or interviewing some of these women.

That's correct.

And you could really resonate with them because you were actually going through the same thing at the at that time.

That's true.

And so it really a lot of times when a woman here, they come into the facility thinkin that we're one particular way, and then we start to share our story.

They start to really identify with us.

Oh, okay.

So you're not, what?

I'm.

You're not this person that's never had this experience has never been through anything.

You've been through some things as well.

And that really helps you identify with that woman and that woman to identify with you.

And that really helps build that rapport that we really need in order to give you what you need, that confidence that we keep saying, listen, I have been there or I am currently there.

Let me tell yo what I'm doing to kind of combat that brain that's really trying to tell me that I'm not doing well, that I'm never going to be anything.

I'm never going to get a job.

I'm never going to work again.

That's not true.

Let me stop you or let me stop you now, I have this conversation with you and let me help you see yourself in another light.

That is definitel one of the things that we want to make sure that every woman has with us.

Yeah.

So, I know you partner with some employers.

Do they.

So how do these women find these jobs?

Do they, do you have these job listing that these women can fit into.

I mean how does that that job placement work.

So normally what happens is that the woman comes in and she's already, she's either looking for the position we have.

We do assist with helping yo find some particular positions, but in most cases they already know.

I had this interview on Tuesday with this particular company.

This is what, this is the position that I'm applying for.

Okay.

So they're going to talk to you about these.

They're going to ask you these particular questions.

They want to know these things about your resume.

Tell me a little bit about your history so that I can be sure to highlight these things on your resume to make sure that you talk about them during the interview, so that they can see that you have this particular skill set so they can see that you prepared for these particular things.

So that's ho that's typically how that goes.

Most of the time they already have that information they're already prepared for.

They are getting prepared for that interview.

Yeah.

Are there othe training classes that you offer?

So we have what's called, Power Women's Group.

And what this is, is a monthly meeting, with, every type of person.

So this is for unemployed, employed people who have been employed for years.

We have a dynamic speaker come in and they will talk about various things that are going on or that you could be encountering in your particular workplace.

So there could be human resource issues that could be stress in the workplace, that could be stress in the home, that could be, transitioning from one career to another.

And those conversations are really important to have.

And then you're seeing all these other people or these other women in different walks of life.

So I have this one particular person who's just started their job.

Another person has been in their job for 15 years and ready t transition to do something else.

And just having these dynami conversations amongst yourselves and what it is, and we really encourage each other to kind of have these conversations and star to meet these different people.

And you never know what can come out of these meetings.

One of the ones that we jus recently had was on networking and teaching women how to, have these conversations with people you barely know.

Talk about your elevator speech, that five, that little two minute speech where you're quickly introducing yourself to someone new.

Talking about some of the things that you're interested in.

And it was a it's a really good experience for everyone at every walk of their career.

So basicall you're giving them more skills.

We want to make sure that you are successful throughout your career.

So, we're always available for questions.

So those those human resource questions that you may have, getting through that first review, those types of things.

That's what we're there for, to make sure that you are successful.

And if you need to get you with a mentor, then we're going to get you with a mentor.

So whatever you need to make sure that you are successfu not only once you get the job, but after you get the job and the moving forward in your career.

And the hope is that you'll come back and then help another another woman do the same thing.

how can our viewers help you guys out?

So we're always taking donations.

There's clothing donations, jewelry, purses, shoes, We love to work with other, other nonprofits in order to make sur that we're getting every woman that we can possibly help.

The goal is to not be needed.

That is our ultimate goal.

So work yourself out of a job.

Work myself out of a job?

Yes, man, I like, so we want to make sure, those are the ways that we're definitely looking for assistance from the community.

And honestly, if you have ideas for us, we are.

We are 100% open.

If you ever thought about this, have you ever thought about starting these particular things with your women?

No, we haven't talked to me about that.

So.

Yes, always.

All right Thank you so much for coming in.

This has been very interesting.

Thank you.

Thank you for having wish you so much success with dress for success.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank an thank you for joining us today.

We hope Chattanooga Stronger Together provides a new perspective for viewers like you who are looking to make a difference.

So let us know what you think.

Email us at stronger at City tv.

on social media.

I'm Barbara Marder and we'll see you next time.

Support for this program is provided by the Weldon F Osborne Foundation.

The Schillhahn-Huskey Foundation.

And viewers like you.

Thank you.