Leadership modesto

By Dawn Kelley Human Resource Manager City of Modesto

As the 40th Leadership Modesto Class, also known as, “The Best Class Ever”, we are ready to delve into the City of Modesto and Stanislaus County.

Inspiring, motivating, humbling… proud…a few words I would use to describe our Leadership Modesto’s first outing into the Community. We went wide-eyed into Community Services Day on February 3, 2023, with excitement at seeing one another again, enthusiasm at the possibility of learning and engagement in this process. What came out of this day could not be as easily defined.

Our first stop of the day was Without Permission. This grass roots 501(c)3 organization is determined to end Human and Sex Trafficking. They have assisted 764 people to exit this modern-day slavery trade and 91% of them call Stanislaus and San Joaquin County home. This means these are OUR children…say it with me… OUR CHILDREN. This is not a problem of others; this is our problem and only working together can we assist this organization to reach more, assist more, do more.

The bus was eerily silent as we began the journey to our next stop, thankful to have 15 minutes to process and debrief with our hosts. The message for today is about Servant Leadership, Debbie Johnson is the definition of a Servant Leader. Her passion is evident in the language she uses, the stats she shares and the personal connection she shows. I am grateful she is here, in our County making a difference…selflessly.

Our entire day was filled with amazing story tellers and community organizations doing the work to make life better. We went to Food Initiative of Greater Stanislaus County, Community Hospice, Modesto Veterans Center, Center for Human Services and Modesto Gospel Mission. It is at the Gospel Mission that we learn about an absolutely amazing person. We call him Mike, with his blessing and encouragement.

Recently, Modesto Gospel Mission began creating micro-enterprises so when their residents left, they could make a living wage and support themselves. The Mission believes in no handouts, only hand ups and have 90 people in recovery currently. One such microenterprise is coffee roasting and a coffee company, Volente, is the result. Volente means God Willing.

The men in this program are learning how to roast coffee, make sales, inventory, operations; what it takes to run a business.

Mike told us his story while roasting coffee beans on a shiny silver roaster. You could hear the humbleness of his voice as he described how lucky he was. He spoke of, “trying to help everybody”, having served alongside the men in recovery in the Day Program, New Life Program and Caretaker. Now we can add Master Coffee Roaster to his list of accomplishments.

They currently roast beans from Papa New Guinea (Magnificus) and Honduras (Nox) with a mix of the two called Lumen. Volente opened for sales in December 2022 and our group could see remnants of holiday baskets and orders getting ready to be filled. You can find this coffee at Austin’s Coffee House in Ripon and Shelter Cove Church in Modesto. Something tells me, we will soon find this coffee all over Modesto, and we should… God Willing.

At the end of our Community Services Day, again, silence persisted. Lost in thought about how we could make the biggest impact in our community with our class project. In the end, we know the 40th Class of Leadership Modesto has already impacted twenty-one lives. Each one of us in this class.

Thank you Modesto Chamber for allowing us the opportunity to learn more, engage more and finally, do more.