I found my why

May 3, 2021

“My parents divorced when I was four. I went to St. Andrew’s School in Jackson through the eighth grade. It was becoming increasingly difficult for my mother to work full-time to support us, get me to cheerleader practice, and keep all of the balls in the air as a single parent. She needed help. We moved to Yazoo City, her hometown, to be closer to my grandmother.

I went from St. Andrew’s to Manchester Academy. It was a different environment and terrible timing. I completely went off the rails. My mother pulled me out of Manchester and put me in Yazoo City High School. I dropped out for a while in 11th grade. I couch-surfed with friends and stayed everywhere but home. I was hurting and overcompensated for it in everything that I did. If I was going to dabble in smoking weed, I was going to smoke all the weed. If I was going to be popular, I was going to be super-popular. If I was going to be stupid, I was going to be real stupid. I was lost, damaged and rebellious as hell. I don’t know how my mom survived it.

I went back to the high school and made up what I missed during my sabbatical. My grandmother was my rock. One of my teachers, Pam Horton, poured into me and got me through to graduation. I was an avid reader of Glamour magazine. Bauder Fashion College advertised on a page in the back, and I decided that is where I wanted to go college. My mother wisely told me it seemed like a good idea, but maybe I should also apply to a few more schools.

I went to Ole Miss. By the time I got to college, I had already screwed up and made my mistakes. I was a freshman with the mind of a senior. I majored in fashion design and wanted to be a buyer because that is all I knew about fashion. No research went into that choice. I got a job with Ann Taylor and stayed with them for years. I loved managing people and was living my dream. I went from there to radio ad sales to writing columns and making magazines. My father, Hank Downey, was a news anchor in Jackson. I was estranged from him much of my life, but working in media and storytelling must be in my DNA.

I came across a Facebook post about Shower Power. It was a food truck converted into a mobile shower unit for the homeless. The moment I realized it was started by my friend Teresa Renkenberger, she called right then and asked me to get involved. That was the spring of 2019 and I was in. Teresa is a fairy who rides unicorns and tosses glitter in the air. She is the opposite of my personality.

No one showed up on the first day of Shower Power. I wasn’t even there because Teresa forgot to tell me about it. One of the volunteers picked up two people so there were two showers the first Friday. The next Friday, we gave five showers. Last Friday, it was 80. We’ve been doing this about 17 months and I think we are touching a little over a third of Jackson’s homeless population. Restaurants, businesses, churches and groups are feeding lunch on shower days. People are bringing clothes to share and barbers are cutting hair. We are on the frontline of changing lives. Everything about this is Spirit-led.

A hot shower makes you feel a little better about life. One of our homeless friends told me when someone looks clean, you know they don’t struggle. She associated cleanliness with success and being dirty with struggling. But Shower Power has grown into more than showers. We are helping people find housing and jobs. We created a relationship with a motel and negotiated a good rate to keep people there. We’ve gotten 12 people off the streets and into homes. Shower Power has also helped with housing repairs to prevent a few people from becoming homeless.

We share some of the stories of our people because knowing what someone has gone through makes them relatable. We see their human sides and how important they are. These stories have touched a nerve and people are coming out of the woodwork to help. They donate for annual rent and grocery sponsorships or send us their stories about talking to a homeless person for the first time. During the ice storm, our goal was to raise enough in money to put 50 people in hotels. We put 137 people in hotels for 11 nights. That was amazing.

Robert taught me that lives can change, no matter what you have been through. He was savagely beaten by his stepfather as a child, probably to the point of brain damage. At age 14, he got on a bus and came to Jackson to find his grandmother. She was his rock, just like my grandmother was mine. But he was in and out of juvenile detention centers and truancy programs. He was the poster child for failure. He was also the wolf. When he walked into Shower Power, everyone backed up. I started watching him because he was always reading a book or newspaper. I also found out he has a wicked sense of humor, and we began to connect. We got him housed and into a job that he loves. He can’t believe he is getting paid to powerwash equipment. He’s happy and thriving. People stop me on the street and ask me about Robert.

Teresa and I have street names. She is ‘The Glitter ‘ and I am ‘The Hammer.’ Someone gave us t-shirts with these names. I’m propelled by Teresa’s tailwind. I’m the one who says no, but I also help figure out what she wants to do and somehow we make it work. I don’t know how this happened, but I am strapped in.

I get the biggest rush out of helping people and making a difference. It thrills me that our homeless friends know my name and say it with fondness. It shows that they trust me and I mean something to them. I found my why.”

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