Last night I had just the best time. And certainly I can’t provide you with the quality event blogging that Mr. Roboto can. But let me see if I can’t give you the tiniest idea of what the evening with the women of Magdalene was like.
Magdalene House is a program started in Nashville about 10 years ago by Becca Stevens, the Episcopal priest at Vanderbilt. It houses and supports women with a history of prostitution and addiction, uplifting them back into society through programs that include job training, education and the other support they need. My friend Holli Anglin directs the cottage industry arm of the program, Thistle Farms, which provides many of the women of Magdalene with job training — in sales, marketing, accounting and other areas.
I volunteered at Magdalene years ago, and have been involved off and on in small ways through Junior League. Mostly, I’ve just been a bystander who’s thrilled and inspired to see their amazing, phenomenal success. It’s grown into a program with true vision. Today they’re thinking bigger than ever: they’d like to expand Thistle Farms nationally. Wow!
Well last night’s program was incredibly moving, as always. Chief of Police Ronal Serpas was there to give his endorsement of Magdalene. Marcus Hummon [Becca Stevens' husband] played keyboard, sang and directed a choir of the women of Magdalene and Nashville music luminaries. Charlene Ibrahim soloed with the choir. The music was so perfectly designed to bring the message of the evening. There’s no way to recreate here what they did last night. Another highlight was Don Schlitz singing his song "I Think About You."
But if you’ve been to a Magdalene event before, or hung around at their office, you know that the people who tell their story best are the women of Magdalene themselves. We must have heard from 10 or 15 last night. Each starts her story with her name and how long she’s been clean and sober. Last night we heard from women who are 6 months new to the program and some who’ve been clean 10 years. One beautiful, poised funny lady will graduate from college next month. They didn’t all end up at Magdalene through the same path. The assumptions you might make about these women wouldn’t always be correct. But every story makes you cry and every one makes the problem–and the solution–to prostitution and addiction very concrete.
See if there’s a way you can support Magdalene and Thistle Farms.
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