Rebecca Shetler Fast on keeping our kids safe

Rebecca Shetler Fast is president and CEO of CAPS, which works to keep kids safe from harm and help support families in Elkhart County.
Rebecca grew up in Canada and graduated from Goshen College. She worked in Haiti with Mennonite Central Committee, but came back to Goshen to be closer to family and is now a key part of one of Elkhart County's important organizations.
Our conversation with her is about how she does her job as a new president and CEO and how partnerships and volunteers are key as we all work together.

This show is a production of the Community Foundation of Elkhart County. It is powered by equipment from Sweetwater and recorded in the Viaggio Studio at weIMPACT in Elkhart's River District. Editing is done by the award-winning communication students at Goshen College, home of one of the best college radio stations in the nation. Listen to Globe Radio at 91.1 FM. Learn more about the Community Foundation of Elkhart County at inspiringgood.org You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Music is provided by Sensational Sounds. Thanks for listening. We hope you are inspired and inspire good and your community.

Transcript

Marshall V. King: 0:01

Welcome to the Inspiring Good Podcast. This podcast is brought to you by the Community Foundation of Elkhart County, which serves a vibrant community in northern Indiana known for its generosity and strong network of nonprofit organizations. I'm Marshall King, your co host with Kevin dairy, a veteran nonprofit CEO, who is now director of professional and organizational development for the Community Foundation of Elkhart County. Today, our guest is Rebecca Shetler fast, President and CEO of caps. An amazing organization here in Elkhart County. Welcome, Rebecca.

Rebecca Shetler Fast: 0:39

Good to be here. Thanks for having me.

Kevin Deary: 0:40

Rebecca, it is so good to welcome you here to our inspiring, good podcast. You're a second guest. We are very excited about caps in the work that's done by caps. In my former role I work closely with caps. There is such a need for it. Can you for those of us who don't know our audience, about CAPS, maybe talk a little about the mission and the history.

Rebecca Shetler Fast: 1:03

Thanks, Kevin. And again, it's wonderful to be here. CAPS was started almost 50 years ago in Elkhart County and came from a grassroots community a sense of need, that awareness of children were unsafe in our community were being abused, were being neglected. And Crossroads United Way was at the very beginning, saying we need to do something, we need to be able to support parents and make sure that kids are safe. So almost 50 years ago, Darrell Abbott, the founding CEO was hired. And as caps emerge, what makes a little bit unique in the state of Indiana is that the community came to us and said, you know, we need more help in this specific area. So caps was the first CASA program in the state of Indiana. Casa stands for court court appointed special advocates and there are people who are one way of saying is the guardian angel have kids who are abused and neglected in our community. And they represent their voice. Well, they're going through the judicial system, they say, you know, this is the best needs of this child, we will also had the first child advocacy center in the state of Indiana, child advocacy, something that we wished didn't have to exist. It's a forensic interview that every child so everyone under the age of 18, in our county, comes to when we suspect that they've been abused or neglected, as well as victims who have observed crime. So we were again, the first in the state and kind of pioneering that and as the years kind of went on, the community kept coming back to kept saying, you know, we know that, you know, caps, his mission is child abuse prevention and response, we need we have more need. And so we kept growing our programs so that now we have the largest umbrella suite of programs in the state of Indiana that both do prevention, so upstream supports for parents and kids to make sure that kids aren't abused. And there's a whole cluster of programs in there. And on the other hand, if we haven't been able to prevent abuse response programs, so after the fact so I gave two examples of that the CASA program, and our child advocacy center. So we are so pleased to I mean, I think being able to do this suite of programs in this unique, impactful way. It's a measure of how much our community cares about kids and families and that is very, very unique in Elkhart County. And that's what's allowed us to exist and to thrive as an organization.

Kevin Deary: 3:19

I had the pleasure of working with Darrell Abbott when I came to this county in 1994. Darrell was one of the one of the they were fairly new as well and but he was a such a champion for children. Still this still is and such a privilege to work with him, and then later on to work with candy Yoder Yes, I was so glad to see you're here. We've all become big fans of you. And we can't wait to explore a little bit more in this interview more about you. But I'd like to talk about April's coming up child abuse month. What do you got planned?

Rebecca Shetler Fast: 3:54

So April's Child Abuse Prevention Month or as we say every month is actually child abuse prevention month, but we really focus in April. One of the things we want to do is just have a simple symbol that we can have community members put out and stand behind to show that we are with this mission of ensuring that we have the safest community Indiana's of the pinwheel across the US and in Elkhart county blue pinwheels represent the joy of childhood that we want to preserve for kids. We are fighting so that children can live these childhoods free from the worries of victimization from abuse. And we have this year over 10,000 pinwheels sitting at caps and community members can put them out and it's kind of the most wonderful sign I just had an email from a judge who said we stand ready to put out the pinwheels we're ready for that. So people put out we call them pinwheel gardens, but basically plant pinwheels and planters at the Community Foundation stores who don't have land. They put them out in bouquets, just as kind of a symbol and a gesture that we care. This is a safe community. Our Communities vibrancy and livability and all of those things depend on a foundation where kids are safe. And this is our symbol and reminder to kids, and one of the things I love doing is going to schools and churches in April. And I like to tell kids, you know, has anyone seen these blue pinwheels at every handle? Raise? They're all over. I mean, everyone's got them. Do you know that's our represent our promise to you, and our commitment that we really want you to be safe. We're really serious about that. There's so many safe adults. And when you see that, you know, that's a reminder and our promise. So I am always it's, I find it really touching and moving to see that in our community. And it's just visually everywhere in the in the month of April. So what is April? April is about reminding people of doubling down on our commitment having people in positions of power, our mayor's come together, our commissioners, our sheriff and they say, you know, in formally and informally in every way that matters in our community, we are committed to kids being safe.

Kevin Deary: 5:48

One of the things I don't know if you include the fire department in that but you do good. Absolutely. So many of our fire department also there on the frontlines. frontlines. Oh, yeah. Children like police and teachers. Yes. Counselors, yes. We want our pastors, youth pastors Absolutely. touches everybody

Rebecca Shetler Fast: 6:07

It does. There's no one for whom this isn't relevant. And it's not about being a parent of a kid. Because the safe community and I say this, based on science and research, you know, is safe adults committed to being this, I think of holding hands or this network of support, saying, This is not a community that has these holes where people can take advantage of kids, or these gaps that you know, as a neighbor, I'm a safe adult as a church member, as a boss, and that that makes it a uniquely safe fabric of our community. No,

Unknown: 6:37

so true. One of the things I love about CAPS is you are both educational, preventative preventive. Yeah, so interventions. Absolutely. Can you talk about some of the programs, you've touched on a few of them, but you have educational programs, you have prevention programs, and then you have intervention programs? Maybe you can talk and help our audience understand those? Sure. Well, I kind of talked about the two pillars, you might say prevention focused programs that are more upstream earlier before something bad has happened, and more response programs which are downstream. And in each of those clusters of programs. Kevin, you're right, that we have a lot of modalities to do the work a lot of ways we can take action on both ends of the spectrum. Education is always an intervention, that's always something we're doing. So I'll give you an example of one thing that I'm so proud of Elkhart county doing so about three years ago, we became the first in the state and the first in the country to have every public school, K through 12. Use an evidence base that means effective safety curriculum for kids. It's a not scary, really wonderful curriculum that teaches kids five basic rules, you know, spot red flags, like if your stomach doesn't feel well, I'll tell kindergarteners, if you have this gut feeling that this isn't great. Tell a safe adult, that's a really important part. And it goes through these safety rules all the way to reminding kids don't feel blame or shame because the reason that somewhere in the realm of about only 20% of kids who are victims of abuse actually disclose or share is because they feel this sense of blame and shame. And that's one of the barriers for them. So again, thinking about education as an intervention, having K through 12. And all of our school systems across the county first in the country, do this. That's both an intervention that's an education as well. Thinking about other ways we intervene in the community. Again, another education example, pastors will often come to us and say, Hey, we're working on safe church things can you come educate our broader community, our broader congregation, thinking about other interventions, and I'll give you an example of a great program on the prevention end of things. So again, earlier, upstream, healthy families, we have a large program where at risk moms who are pregnant and they're at risk, because they're living in poverty, they were able to accompany them. And we have home visitors as the word but in home support for the first five years of their kids lives. So we'd walk them through attachment curriculum, we helped educate them, we helped to encourage them cheerlead helped to change cycles of what may have been not really modeling and parent in those in those kind of critical formative years, to set them up, you know, to have healthy attachments, and strong kind of relationships with their kids. And so that is a kind of attachment based curriculum that includes a lot of kind of elements in that in doing that intervention. So the interesting thing, I guess, I would say is that education, interventions, kind of all those things. We use so many modalities to accomplish our goals, as we work to prevent child abuse and then respond, but we're always preventing you to prevent that child from coming back into our system. And that cycle from continuing as we know can happen with child abuse. I'm a huge fan of the staff of the programs. Yes, for calves, having worked to youth development work for 40 years. I know the stories that we see, we see a lot of joy. We see a lot of recovery. We see a lot of pathways working their way back, but we also see a lot of pain. Yeah, and I think you're a staff are some of the bravest people in our county. And I mean that for what they have to see. Yeah, what they have to hear things like supervised visits? You know, that's a, that's a need working closely with the courts. Yeah. Can you talk a little about supervised visits? Yeah. And, and I would also go back to your statement, that it takes a lot of bravery. And I think a really special person who feels drawn, you know, to this work to walk alongside, especially on the response side, again, when bad things have happened, to walk into what is a lot of pain and a lot of trauma, and to do this as as part of their role. So I just want to agree with you and say, I have the most incredible brave colleagues and staff that I'm privileged to serve with supervised visitation and get them that response. And so things have happened, it's not the first stage in prevention. And it's when one of the parents isn't able to safely visit with their child without supervision. We're the only site in the county that does supervised visitation for a lot of families who have domestic domestic violence is involved. So we have off duty police officers that are there to make sure it's a safe place for both both parents and the child. One of the reasons we missionally do this work, though, is because we know that every child really wants to be with their parents. And even if their parents have made mistakes, and not always done a good job, and I'll just put more directly, not it was kept them safe, abuse them. Most children still believe in their parents, and they love their parents. And it's very traumatic to not have contact and I'm just going to kind of be blunt and say dads especially right, we know that we know the epidemic of fatherlessness. We know the impacts of that. And so to help, I kind of call it a little bit of rehabilitation to have a staff member who's sitting with that parent, we call them the non custodial parent who can't be with their child without supervision, helping coaching them to have a positive one hour visit developmentally to understand what to ask a six year old to do that in a calm way that doesn't scare the child. That's pretty important stuff, right for that kid to help them develop new patterns. So it's a it's a hard program to run. And it's very missional for us that again, we're trying to, we're trying to prevent child abuse. So there's very first moments but even as we move into response programs or bad things are happening, there's always a prevention element like we can always do something. And again, that kid they want to be with their parent if if that's at all possible. So we want to try to help them be a safe adult and to kind of transform that if that's possible. The other program the CASA program, yes. To flip it is so important. Yes. And positive advocate youth. That is not they're representing the family or necessarily the court they are they're representing the child, only the child. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, yeah, I get so excited talking about all the programs, Kevin. So thank you for asking and into the weeds like this. So casa, what I love about it, is that it, you know, it's they're not a social worker, they're not looking to you know, they're not in within the DCS system. They're not a foster parent, they're just meeting with, let's say, Johnny, and they are a positive role model. And they're trying to figure out what's best for Johnny. And the judicial system puts a lot of emphasis and weight on their opinion, our magistrate will say you are the eyes and ears of the court you represent, you know, the court as you go into this, these foster homes, and you see what is the best interest of the child as the whole system is trying to figure that out? This is someone who is just there for that child to try to understand a child that we have, in some ways already failed? How can we move forward in better ways for them? How can we represent their very best interest? And it's it's an incredible rule. I think, Kevin, you were at we had an event last summer, where we had a casa, who formed an incredible relationship with a young man in the foster system through CAPS, and then was at his wedding in the fall, and was really serving in a incredible parental kind of grandparent role. And he's in his 80s. He's in his 80s. And he is so committed. And I remember the young man saying everyone always was, you know, asking me surveys, and they're trying to get something from me. He just sat, and he just wants to know how he's doing. And so that's the Casa. And how many classes do you have? We have a little over 60 right now. and we need another 60. So we want a CASA. So they're volunteers. And I should say that we are always looking for classes. And in particular, I'm just gonna say we would love more men, because we have so many boys in the system. And it's really nice for them to have that. That role model. We have staff who then fill the role of classes because we're committed to never having a waiting list. I mean, we need to serve these children. But there's there's something very special about someone who's volunteering their time and having this commitment to working with a child so we we always welcome people to be part of that. And

Kevin Deary: 14:57

do they need any special criteria? I know they have to go through some training for sure, yeah,

Rebecca Shetler Fast: 15:02

there's training you will meet. It's I think I call it a volunteer plus plus role. So you meet with one of our staff. There's really wonderful support and coaching in that, obviously background checks. We have high standards, as you can imagine, as a child abuse prevention organization. But once they get going, it's more ongoing engagement with their child. Yeah.

Kevin Deary: 15:20

So now I want to talk about you. Okay. So we are so excited to have you here today. We see the great work that you're continuing the legacy that was started by Darrell Abbott and candy Yoder. And here, you are now continuing this legacy, this important work, we would love to put you out of business, we would, yes, but unfortunately, I don't think that's ever gonna happen. Why did you take this position?

Rebecca Shetler Fast: 15:47

You know, growing up, and in my adulthood, some of the people that I love, most were hurt as children, were abused by children. And there's always been a strong, maybe guardian angel or someone who wants wishes to change that, and wants to make sure I want to make sure that other kids don't experience that I went on from college to focus on trauma as a trauma specializing therapist, and I always sought out people who had been hurt. And that was part of living that out in a certain point, I realized I had a calling that, you know, working with people after the fact that I thought I could do more good if I could prevent them from getting hurt in the first place as kids, if I could go, I use the frame upstream. But that just means going earlier getting to people earlier in those earliest moments, because it's, it's, it's hard when bad things have happened. If we think about the equivalent in the medical world, right? We want to prevent the heart attack if we can. And so for me, this is living out a passion and a calling. And there's some sense of you know, we will never accomplish this, right? We will never be done with this work. But it feels deeply meaningful. To be working towards that every day and to be leading is just the greatest honor for me. Even if even if it's the kind of the long defeat, there's afraid the long defeat we're never gonna get there. But to be striving towards that. I get tremendous meaning from that personally.

Marshall V. King: 17:20

So Rebecca, you're Canadian?

Unknown: 17:22

I say eh once in a while and I got really excited. You came to Goshen College? Yes. And ended up

Rebecca Shetler Fast: 17:29

met a local boy.

Marshall V. King: 17:30

Boy, yes. Near the college. Yeah. Who had also lived other places in the world? Yes. But then you when you left, like talk talk about the space between college and you coming back to reside in, in Elkhart County? Sure.

Rebecca Shetler Fast: 17:46

Well, after focusing on a career as in therapy and trauma, and really living out that calling to be with people where I could help them heal, I had a calling to leadership, and also was clear that I wanted to be of service where there were not the systems and to serve vulnerable people, you know, where there was greater need. And so went to the country of Haiti, and was the country director there for five years with an international development organization. In that time, we started the Caribbeans first evidence based post traumatic stress disorder treatment. So training cross culturally was fascinating, as well, the first wraparound support to children, girls and women who were survivors of rape, that hadn't existed and a lot of other projects. But you know, I was reading an article the other day talking about what is cross cultural living give you Well, it certainly heightens your senses to there's culture and there's context and there's norms everywhere. And it helps to reinforce what your values are as well, because you're always thinking about yourself and how you fit in and what's going on in the context. So as I was leaving Haiti, and you know, the world is your oyster after you've sold your house and your cars, you could go anywhere and I was thoughtfully looking at where where should I move my young family? I had my children when I was in Haiti. And I had a I had interviews and I had communication with leaders in Elkhart county candy odor was one of them. She actually interviewed me for the job I ultimately moved back for and two things that always stood out to me about Elkhart County. So we were looking at international rules. I was looking at Canada, large cities, but one was an absolutely clear commitment to children and families that was just evident in everyone I was talking to, and I started my social work career in Elkhart County. So I had a sense of this, but it was reinforced and to this entrepreneurial sense, and I'll be honest, I was never a spectacular middle manager. I was always kind of pushing on the boundaries and they called me an entrepreneurial leader like it you don't always love that a middle managers if I'm just being honest, so I knew that for a community to be a match for me, there would have to be a willingness to tackle things sometimes differently. And sometimes we would look at different ways of getting things done and I had that very restrung palpable feeling with Elkhart County. And so I came here for a job that was essentially directing a nonprofit network child serving nonprofits based out of Oakland and it was such a wonderful introduction to the nonprofit sheltering community. It was it just a fabulous bird's eye view. And caps was the first organization I collaborated with.

Marshall V. King: 20:23

But one of the stories that I do love, that is part of your story, is when you were in Haiti, you had a staff? Yes. At the agency that you oversaw that you had to keep safe. You had to get them safely to work every day. Yeah. And as you told it, to me, I think you had a rubric that you that you kind of followed. So tell us a little bit about that. And then how that got applied to the project while you were the source? Yeah,

Unknown: 20:51

well, I mean, I think two things in that story. So Haiti, as if anyone's, you know, following the news. It's a country with incredible people with an incredibly hard situation. So just and in my latter years there, there was chaos and burning barricades and kind of gunmen everywhere. So every morning, I would have to make a decision whether or not I could open my office, whether stave staff could safely travel there. They were life and death decisions. And there were really bad outcomes. And so part of that, and I think the connection you're making here, Marshall, in the absence of security information, so hey, do you think about there's no functioning government, you could get a security report from the embassy three days later, but after that time, you've already made a decision, I started developing ways of finding indicators in the community at so I'd start my calls at 530 in the morning, and I would call key people in the capital city, and I would ask for their indicator of safety. So I had one pastor who had a mango cellar outside his church. And I would call him and say is the mango lady out there today. And that was a piece of data piece for me, because she would be able to sense from that section of the city, whether it was safe enough to be worth selling mangoes, and that was a subsistence livelihood. And I had all these I guess, informants, you would say that I would call and check in and I would get a temperature. And then it would put that together. And I'd send a morning report to my staff before 7am to tell them whether or not I was opening the office, whether or not it was safe to come in. And the stakes were high again, kidnappings, death, I had two little babies at home that would be leaving. And if I made a mistake, I wouldn't be able to come back to them. And I had about usually eight burning barricades between my house and my main main office. So what it taught me is that understanding data and indicators, even if you have to create your own systems is powerful. Because what I was able to do in those, especially those intense two years, is communicate a narrative meaning and a direction to my staff, to keep them in the flow, like to keep them working on it. It wasn't chaos, I was trying to make meaning of the chaos. And so actually, Marshall, a connection to this. So I came to Elkhart County, two months later, we had COVID. And in that time, what I was realizing in my bird's eye view of the Elkhart county child serving community, what we needed was a dashboard, we needed data to be able to tell nonprofit leaders when bad things were probably coming and to be able to be proactive instead of reactive. So from that Haiti experience of all those data points that were very informal, but I was ruthlessly following up with twice a day to get a snapshot. I created a child dashboard, we were the first in the state of Indiana that measured metrics of safety, and then protective factors that would mitigate them. And we used a simple COVID scale of red, bad yellow, not so great, green, good. And we were able to aggregate them and make a narrative. And again, narratives are just so helpful, like, what are the trends? Where are we going, and it allows us to be able to, again, be taking action before a bad thing has occurred. And I learned that so much in a high conflict very unsafe situation, the thing you need always is, is information and a sense of where we're going and what does it mean. And so that helped us to create meaning. And to be able to say, as a community, we have these trends. They're concerning to us. And we still use that it was just an incredible response of leaders and nonprofits in a really tough time in the community saying, yeah, we'll share our data if it would be helpful. Yes, as an organization, we will share internal information, which on its own doesn't tell us anything, but collectively we seen a vision, we understand that this can tell us something meaningful about kids and their safety and community that we can collectively take action on. So I'll give one example. We we were wearing COVID time so and Kevin knows us so well, that because our V's were doing so well in Elkhart County, it was more more difficult for nonprofits to hire staff were just not competitive. I mean, we all know that we were not competitive. But the impact of that that we could trace on the dashboard was that a lot of organizations would She did kind of crisis, leading edge things with kids that offered emergency shelter. They didn't have enough staff to fully be able to respond to kids coming in. And again, parents were stressed a lot of kids needed services. So as a result, those kids were going not to the ideal place in our community. And in this case, some of them were ending up in juvenile detention center. And that wouldn't have been in his ideal place, we just didn't have staff. And so as a result, Task Force, we call it a tiger team got together. And in the span of about two months, we were able to say, okay, we can prioritize, even though we have limited staffing and organizations were working so so hard to just run their base operations. I mean, they were, they were pouring everything into it. I remember, you know, Kevin, talking to you and other people, like we had CEOs mopping the floors, because they didn't have staff who could do that, right. Everyone was pouring their sweat and blood in, but it was able to help us prioritize in the limited staffing that we have, where can we shift so that our most vulnerable kids are not inevitably by accident going to the wrong place where we're doing more harm? And we were able to do that, because the dashboard could show that the impact of an economic boom, and then we were able to get together. Elkhart county is incredibly collaborative, getting people to table looking at the kids saying, Yeah, we can realign things so that we can keep these kids safe, get them in the best place. And I think my takeaway is that it's an incredible community. I was that impression I had from Haiti on Zoom interviews and meetings was not wrong. I am in awe of Elkhart County, and this all when organizations were really struggling in COVID times, right. This was not business as usual. This was a time when you know, CEOs didn't have any bandwidth to do an extra What is this? You know, dashboard and these meetings and people said, yes. So that was a really incredible moment.

Kevin Deary: 26:46

You are so true. When you talk about the collaborative efforts of nonprofits here. I'm from the northeast, that doesn't happen where I'm from, maybe with to now with more, but to see ongoing collaboration, not only collaboration, but support. If you need something will send a van, absolutely. You need you need a lot more. Because yours is broken. We have a lot more. Yes, you need people you need. Resources, we shared COVID resources. Some people had a lot of hand, lotion, clubs, things like that. You said others had PPE. I hope I never hear PPE again. Now we're done with that. I am sorry. But we all survived together. We did continue this when I was talking when I was listening to you talk about Haiti. And then you were talking about where you brought it back over to what you do at camps. You know, the children had come from broken homes. They're navigating exactly like that, like you navigate in in Haiti. And they don't have the college education or the support, or the leadership. But every day, they're taking temperatures. Every day, they're trying to figure out who am I? Where am I? Am I safe? Can I go to this bathroom at this school? Can I? Which street Should I take on the way home? Which person is safe? And the scariest place is when I opened my back door? What's going to be happening in front of me? Yeah. And do I need to go back out? Yeah. And I think as you describe that, yeah, capsule is so uniquely positioned to help that child and that family navigate those burning obstacles. Yeah. So I was fascinated listening to you talk about that. What makes a highly effective CEO?

Rebecca Shetler Fast: 28:31

Well, I appreciate you saying how effective first of all, thank you, Kevin. I think there's a different path for everyone. And two traits that I think of our you know, self awareness is so important. And I always, you know, share with people. The higher up you go, the more responsibility you have, the more you have to be self aware. It is on us to understand ourselves, our weaknesses are triggers so that we can control them. And we are able to be calm and thoughtful and intentional, and not reactive. So I think that's important. And I'm not saying you know, I nailed that every day. But that's a very important thing that I strive for. And then this next one, you know, I say, it's important to be humble and even talking about it. It's a little, you know, ironic to say, I want to be humble. But I think it's important, and sometimes people use the term servant leader. And again, I think it's something that we're always we're always trying to do, I don't know if we ever nail it. But I think about that, always being interested and curious and wanting to learn. And, you know, the more the further I become an elite in leadership roles, the more I'm no longer an expert in things the way I was at the beginning of my career, becoming a specialist in trauma right? And the knowledge that by being thoughtful and asking questions and understanding that I don't know everything that can be of service. So I think about those traits. I also, and I don't know if I put this in an algorithm, but I work really hard to find gratitude every day. And that's, I'm not a big journaler. But I do most days have like a gratitude prompt, just just to remember, and a lot of that comes from Haiti, and thinking about why I do this work, and those kids that weren't safe. But to always remember that this work is a gift. And that in every day, and I say this, not in a corny way, but really, that I'm really truly grateful for usually many, many things in that, so I think about that. I don't know if those are the, you know, special secret ingredients for leadership. But I those are the three things I think about often, I would

Kevin Deary: 30:49

say for being fairly new as a CEO, you are a highly effective CEO. Thank you. We can't wait to see where you're going to take caps.

Marshall V. King: 30:59

And and Rebecca, I mean, you're a highly effective CEO. I have sometimes said about to if if you and your husband don't take over the world, your kids probably will as humble servant leaders. So you are the mother of two spirited, bright, precocious children. You are, you know you you have extended family. Your husband Paul runs another nonprofit in Elkhart County. So you're both overseeing important organizations in our community? How do you do all that?

Rebecca Shetler Fast: 31:37

Yeah. You know, I think it starts for us with living out our calling. And we talked about that a lot that was in our wedding vows. That was how we connected, that it starts with why we're doing this work, that neither my husband or I did this to get to jobs, they're not jobs, they're calling, and I will speak for me, this role is a calling and being in this leadership role. So there's not a sense of you know, we're hustling to get somewhere we are doing this, and we are grateful for the mantle that, but just on a practical basis, well, whoever gets their board meeting on the calendar, first, they get the slot, the other person has to arrange childcare. So you know, I'm a little more sharp on the uptake to get my thing. And so you know, I'm just saying, but we, we mostly have things most days of the week, and we try to be really organized and communicate back and forth. We have an incredible family support network locally. And friends and church that are really, really kind and show, you know, their support, by wrapping their arms around us, with our kids. So a lot of safe adults in our kids lives that I'm grateful to have. And we couldn't do it without them. And we also try not to do unnecessary like busy things. We're really ruthless in that we want to have family time we want to be home with our kids in the evening. Yeah. One

Kevin Deary: 33:00

last question. For me, we talked about being highly effective. CEO, we talked about bold staff, critical volunteers that provide mission. Yeah. When it comes to board of directors times are changing. generations are changing. What's a highly effective board look like to you. With

Rebecca Shetler Fast: 33:20

all bias, a highly effective board looks like the caps board. I am so proud and delighted with my board. I think they're incredible. And I'm really, you know, they may be listening to this, but I would say this regardless, they are for me. Number one is they're engaged and passionate about the mission. And you know, somebody will will look at board people by grid and look at specific skill sets. That is important, but I what I value my board is they're all in wholeheartedly is the word I would use. Our staff recognize that the board members feel pride and delight in our mission. And they it's my job, I think, to find where their gifts are and to connect them into our work and meaningful ways for both of us. So they're excited and they know that their skills, their particular skills are being used and maximized in support of this mission that we all agree is the most important thing. And and we all benefit and we all move forward with them together. So I don't know if I could break down the traits, but I just have a fantastic composite on my board. And they are we just had an event, an awareness raising event on Friday. They're all there in full force welcoming guests, telling me how it went connecting me to people. And they do it for very deep kind of missional reasons and I just am so grateful for them.

Kevin Deary: 34:36

Well, we have run out of time. So I'm gonna thank first of all, thank

Marshall V. King: 34:39

you one more question real quick, Kevin, okay. You do hard work and you work hard. What gives you hope?

Rebecca Shetler Fast: 34:47

One individual child at a time there was a little boy who was in a preschool pilot of our safety program. And when he started kindergarten, unfortunately, he had an unsafe incident with an adult and a little A boy who was five years old, within his first week, immediately of school, immediately told his mom who's safe adults, she told the school and they reacted appropriately. And he was the first victim who had ever spoken out this little five year old boy knew to kindergarten, because he had had that safety curriculum. And he knew that wasn't he wasn't to blame, and he didn't need to hold that secret. And so you know, I think of how many kids that represents and I think of what we can do before something gets bad. And so if I think of those kinds of situations, that that that's why we do this work so he can speak out, and he can be safe.

Marshall V. King: 35:36

Thank you for joining us today, Rebecca. We're grateful for you and your work in our community. Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. This show is a production of the Community Foundation of Elkhart County. It is powered by equipment from Sweetwater and recorded at weIMPACT in Elkhart's River District. Editing is done by the award-winning communication students at Goshen College, home of one of the best college radio stations in the nation. Listen to Globe Radio at 91.1 FM. Learn more about the Community Foundation of Elkhart County at inspiringgood.org You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Music is provided by Ray Caldwell, one of the Community Foundation's amazing staff members. Thanks for listening. We hope you are inspired and inspire good and your community.