NEW DIRECTIONS WITH KATHY JENKINS 8/18/26

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Tuesdays for Hope with New Directions right now on the Liz Calloway Show with Nick Summers talk for the entire grand strand.

SPEAKER_02 0:08

Tuesdays for Hope is uh happening right now. So if you want to text in any questions or comments, the budget blinds text line is open 843-798 TALK, 798255. And of course, it's with New Directions, and their website is helpnewdirections.org. Joining us this morning is the I'm gonna give you a title, Director of the Women's Shelter. Chief Program Officer now. Program officer. I knew there was something there. She's uh Chief Program Officer Danielle Walters. Good morning. Good morning. How are you? Good. Thank you so much for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Thank you for having me. So um tell us, you got a couple of events coming up with new directions. Yes. So we have our online um auction right now. It's called the Hope Starter. Ooh. So if you go on our website or our Facebook page, um there's some local experiences, dining packages, golf outings, vacations days, all kinds of fun things. Um so that's going on right now.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

I will share that on our Facebook page so people can place a a bid on one of these auction items. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

And then today our registration opened for our very first um clay shooting competition. Um so that will be on November 13th, and that is in Georgetown at the Backwoods Quail Club. So if you're into that, sign up. Time up open up today.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

All right. Well, I posted that link on the Facebook page and we talked about the clay shoot uh tournament, and you literally get to go from station to station to station. You can go with a whole team, and this is what they're made for there. I mean, this is what they really do. Um, and I think it's awesome. It seems like fun. And if you've never done it, this is your chance to give it a shot. No pun intended. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

All right. So you brought a guest today. I did. So we have um Todd Wood with Impact Ministries. So he's gonna talk a little bit about what they do for our community, which is so much. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Well, you know, when I first moved here and we had hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, uh, we had Hurricane Matthew, and that um that was my first experience here as a resident. And uh I I got to know you and your wife and and impact ministries, and I was like, who are these people and why are they helping so much? Like, how are you doing this? Uh tell us a little bit how Impact Ministries got started.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Wow, that's a long story back. We've been around for about 65 years here in Ori County. It started out as a chaplaincy in each of the campgrounds. Our pastors in uh throughout Ori County had a heart for these new things starting in Myrtle Beach called camping. Okay, so we're gonna be able to do that. So they would do uh they would do uh actual worship services each Sunday to provide these families a place to go. And so over the years it's transitioned a little bit and changed, but we've changed names from Grand Strand Ministry to Intracoastal Outreach to now Impact Ministries, but it's still the same program and same focus of helping families throughout Ori County and visitors.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

So how long have you been leading it?

SPEAKER_00 3:07

I have been here 25 years now.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

Wow. It's been a while. Okay, all right. So you've seen a lot of um transition uh through it, and why w you've changed the kind of pathway recently. So tell us about the new and improved impact ministry.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

Well, when I first got here, our our heart was we've got to have a place to be able to host all these volunteer teams. We have probably 40, 45 teams a year that come to Myrtle Beach.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

That's always an issue.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Yeah, they're always looking for a place. And the scary part is when we have disasters that take place across the U.S., we're usually putting them in schools if we can or in churches to sleep. Well, we know that these churches we put people in are often 70 to 100 years old. They've got windows that have been painted shut or nailed shut, and they're just not safe to be able to host all these volunteers. And we're one accident away from volunteers coming to a town to serve and have a disaster within a disaster. Okay. So we began praying uh 20 something years ago, Lord, we've got to have a place to host volunteers.

SPEAKER_02 4:09

And people have been here for disasters like months and months.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Absolutely. When we when we have the disaster itself, our recovery is usually about two months of getting trees off houses and that sort of thing and get tarps on. Then we start the recovery. We're into that for a year to two years doing the recovery and follow-up with all of our great partners, Catholic charities and Salvation Army, and so many others out there that are a part. So we work on that together as one unified body. And um, so yep, so we needed a place. So five years ago we found a place. We are on First Avenue South, right in the heart of Myrtle Beach. Okay, we can sleep 95 volunteers, and so our role has transitioned a little bit from recruiting all the teams and uh assigning where they go to serve. So now we're more of a hosting site, so we will host all the volunteer teams when they come in and place them.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

And you know, um, and you feed them uh not only food, but spiritually, right? Because they're these are people that are used to giving, giving, giving, giving, but you need a place you need someone to baby you when you're giving so much, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:13

That's right. Every day they're out working so hard doing things, cutting trees off of homes and repairing and rebuilding, and we even have babysitting trailers. Who knew? But when families come in and we've immediately had the disaster, they go into what we call one-stop shop. They go in and they're checking in with all the agencies, what services are available, what help can they get. Well, they can drop their kids off into the babysitting unit. The parent gets a tag, the child gets a bracelet, and they match up, and so we have the opportunity to be able to take care of the children while they're in there and not having to hold them in a line. Well, this uh where we're at is uh we've got about an acre.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

But I was just talking about in the middle of Myrtle Beach, you have an acre?

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Almost an acre. My gosh. Okay. But with the uh what I was talking about, the babysitting thing, all these we can do everything from water purification to uh rebuild assessment. There's many, many different units that we can bring in depending on what our needs are.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

Mm-hmm. Okay, but you don't also only do that. Um, so you house a lot of val volunteers and missionaries coming through. So tell us what else this facility is used for.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Well, we also host our J1 students.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

So we have uh these students We saw a need there because a lot of these students were really being treated poorly.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

They were, they have some really horrible, horrible uh housing conditions. Um now by the city stepping up, we have a couple of new inspectors that are going around and making sure that the homes are what they should be. We were finding houses with 15, 16 kids in one small little apartment and uh just being taken advantage of. So uh now they are able to go in, check the homes. We're building places like RRH, the new international resident house, places that can give them safe housing. So we have students that live with us. We're able to spend time with them, make sure that they have all their needs. Uh we offer for them uh greeters at the airport. So we receive the students. Uh it's called All Nations Cafe. We'd love other folks in the community to get involved if you're not involved, but we do orientations every Monday for these students. We feed them a free meal twice a week on Monday and Wednesday, have about 300 kids come and hang out with us, and we play games, we fix bikes, we check out the bikes to them, they ride them all summer. Yeah. So a lot of ways we can love on these students.

SPEAKER_02 7:35

You know, it's it's very interesting. Um I I when uh we go out uh in the city of Myrtle Beach often and encounter a lot of these students working at the restaurants and hotels and stuff, and uh we always strike up conversations. I met this young man from Poland and we were speaking with him, and he asked, he says, I have to ask you a question. And we were like, What? And they're like, he's like, is it safe to ride my bike around Myrtle Beach? And he said, They gave me a bike, and I said, I said, Well, it yes, but it's dangerous. The roads are dangerous, people aren't paying attention, you know, there might be drunk drivers out there, people are looking at their phones. I'm like, you just need to be careful. And I wouldn't ride on the overnight, you know, like don't don't drive ride your bike late at night in the city of Myrtle Beach, especially alone. I I mean I just I feel compelled to I mean, are you helping them navigate safely around the city? Because the streets are not really safe at night overnight.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

We we do. We try and help them. We provide through the PED committee uh the City of Myrtle Beach bikes. They uh thank you guys, they donate bike lights, and so we put those on all the bikes. And as a chair, we've got about 300 bikes that we check out to these students so they can ride all summer. We have a whole team of volunteers that just repair their bikes every Monday and Wednesday night, keeping them on the road. We've got one guy who drives his truck, Jimmy, all over town. He goes and fixes their bikes on site, whether they're at work or whether they're at home and we can help them. Yeah. But yeah, we have to teach them where they can ride. But you realize most of these students are working till 12, 1, 2 in the morning riding their bikes back home.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

Yeah, I mean, key because these are people, you know, they're they're not aware of how this community is. I mean, maybe some of them are repeat people, but there's got to be some kind of um kind of uh, you know, reality check when they come in.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Right. And so we try and help them with that. Like I said, uh every Monday we do a orientation. So we have the Myrtle Beach Police Department comes in, the fire department, we have Social Security is there, the banks, we have cell phone companies. Everyone's there to help make this transition very smooth for them so they know what to watch for, how to travel, what's a how to be safe within the community. And people don't realize that the J1 program is a private funded, it has nothing to do with the federal government. It is not funded by them whatsoever. Oh, okay. We have almost uh 2,000 students that are here in the city of Myrtle Beach this year. And of those, we've had over a thousand come through our all-nation cafe uh and more than 50 countries have come through our doors.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

Wow, that's that really is amazing. And I I really do enjoy meeting all these uh young people. They're very bright-eyed. I mean, one guy, I think he was in uh in college in Poland for uh medical uh, you know. I mean, they're very uh ambitious.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Yes, these are the best of the best students. You have to think they're coming from countries where uh there's a lot of limitations, and for them to be able to get their travel visas and so forth, they have to um they've got to have a little bit of money and they've got to have a good education to get here.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, it's amazing that um this uh this whole retreat center exists, impact ministries. I put a link on our Facebook page. Now, what if you're a group that wants to do, you know, kind of bonding experience and get involved? Can they kind of just cobble together a group of friends?

SPEAKER_00 11:05

Absolutely. We've got family reunions, we've got folks that come over and stay with us that are looking to do women's retreats or men's retreats, uh, we've got craft um scrapbook groups, anything they want to come over and they can stay, utilize the facility. We'd love to have them.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

That's pretty cool. And you're just a few hundred steps from the beach.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Absolutely. We're about a hundred yards from the beach, and my favorite group every year, we have a couple children's homes that we invite to come and just stay for free. Come and utilize it, and it's just another way we can give back to them and provide a great opportunity.

SPEAKER_02 11:35

Very good. Well, um, we've had uh, you know, we haven't had any big storms over the last a couple of um years, but uh that is still a primary focus and you're already all ready, ready for action.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

It is. We're geared up and we continue to have meetings uh to make sure we're planned and prepared with all the agencies throughout the city and how we can uh work together.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

All right. If you want to check them out, go to impactmb.org or if you want to sign up for the clay shoot uh or go to that, make a bid on one of those auction items for fundraising for new directions. Go to helpnewdirections.org. Thank you so much, Danielle. Thank you. I appreciate it. And uh great to see you again, Todd. I haven't seen you in a while. Great to see you, too. Todd Wood. All right, thank you so much, and we'll see you all tomorrow.