Temple Dream Center helps local residents ‘Dream Big’

By RANDY CAPPS

Before Yvonne McCarthy ever gets out of her car, you can get an idea what she’s about. There’s a “Dream Big” license plate on the front of her vehicle and a “DreamCTR” vanity plate on the back.

As executive director of the Temple Dream Center in Selma, and one of the driving forces behind its creation locally, that’s on brand. “Dream Big” also appears on the brochure, which describes the array of services the organization offers people in need.

Because of that vision, and its execution, the Temple Dream Center is the 2023 Johnston Now Honors Nonprofit of the Year Award winner.

McCarthy’s journey, from Minnesota to West Virginia to Johnston County, is a story of God’s timing.

“I was in West Virginia and Pastor John Ekland, who is our recovery pastor at the church, was there. … We were on a retreat and the theme was ‘What is the Dream that God Put Inside You?’ What are you supposed to do?

“Right before that, I kept hearing ‘dream center, dream center.’ So, I Googled it and found the L.A. Dream Center, which is in the old City of Angels Hospital. I didn’t really know what that meant, but I went on the retreat, and we were supposed to come up with that dream, and I said, ‘I think I’m supposed to start a dream center.”

It took eight years, but the door finally cracked for her in 2017.

“When I got here, Pastor Rodney Pearce said, ‘I didn’t say you could start a dream center, I just hired you as my operations director,’” she said. “I said, ‘dude, there’s no way I moved all this way and I’m not starting a dream center.’”

The Dream Center network is committed to meeting the needs of the communities it serves, whatever they may be.

“Dream centers are basically an outreach to the community,” McCarthy said. “If you look at dream centers across the nation, it could be anything from an after-school program, a food pantry, there’s one in DC that does a fine arts program for underprivileged children — it depends on what your community needs.”

Locally, helping survivors of domestic violence became the top priority.

“We met with Kay Johnson, who runs Harbor of Johnston County, and asked what was the biggest need, and she said transitional housing,” McCarthy said.

“So, when women are in danger, they leave in the middle of the night. Police are sometimes involved, and then they get to a shelter. They go to the shelter, they’re working on a few things and getting some healing. When they leave the shelter, hopefully the next step is going to some friend’s or family’s house and do some couch surfing — just trying to figure out how to get their life together. From there, that’s when we want them.”

The Temple Dream Center offers a one-year program that provides housing while survivors of domestic abuse can heal, go back to school and achieve a level of financial stability.

“The number one reason women go back to their abusers is financial,” McCarthy said. “They just can’t afford to live on their own.”

As of January 2023, the Transitions program has provided 3,300 safe nights for its residents. It’s a mission that has special meaning for McCarthy.

“I married an abuser, my first marriage,” she said. “Emotional abuse is something people tend to discount. If they don’t see a black eye, they say, ‘oh, he just has an anger problem.’

“And one of the women I met when I first came here to start it, she had been in a very abusive relationship, physically. So, we both kind of had that heart and thought about what we experienced and survived and thought about how cool it was to be able to pour into women who had that same situation.”

Since its inception, the center has expanded to offering a food pantry, clothes closet and neighborhood ministries.

It’s all part of a dream that grows a little each day.

Want to donate or volunteer? Visit templedreamcenter.org.