{"id":158973,"date":"2023-12-08T08:44:53","date_gmt":"2023-12-08T13:44:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=158973"},"modified":"2024-05-10T15:01:16","modified_gmt":"2024-05-10T19:01:16","slug":"what-it-took-erin-reed-08-on-a-journey-of-compassion-community-and-loving-lewiston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2023\/12\/08\/what-it-took-erin-reed-08-on-a-journey-of-compassion-community-and-loving-lewiston\/","title":{"rendered":"What It Took: Erin Reed ’08 on a journey of compassion, community, and loving Lewiston"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On a 22-degree day in November, Erin Reed \u201908 arrived at the Trinity Jubilee Center in Lewiston at 5:30 a.m. to help unload some 4,000 pounds of food from a Good Shepherd Food Bank truck. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two hours later, bundled in ski pants and a hoodie, the center\u2019s executive director stood outside, patiently checking in people who came to collect cardboard boxes full of free vegetables, fruit, cheese, and frozen catfish to help feed their families. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After another two hours, Reed finally came inside the soup kitchen to work on her laptop. She looked around for somewhere to sit, since a doctor was using the center\u2019s only office to provide free health clinics. She grabbed a metal chair and set up shop in a large hallway where grocery boxes were being packaged, her lap serving as a makeshift desk as she typed away. It proved the perfect setting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Erin
Erin Reed \u201908, executive director of the Trinity Jubilee Center, works on her laptop at a makeshift desk, placing food and diaper orders and emailing the Lewiston Housing Authority about a client\u2019s meal delivery, among other things. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Behind Reed draped over a large stack of diapers hung a blanket adorned with rainbows and unicorns \u2014 a backdrop that stood in stark contrast to the difficult, life-altering social work Reed does here for those in need. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve watched the impact of what Erin has done and what the place has meant to Lewiston as part of the fabric of this community,\u201d said Kim Wettlaufer \u201980 of Lewiston, the former director of Trinity Jubilee Center, who is still an avid volunteer. \u201cThere are a lot of demands. People come here with extreme circumstances. Their needs are great. It needs someone who is even-keeled, someone with a calm exterior.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reed is all of that, but her job is far from easy. So for the ongoing What It Took series<\/a>, we asked her where she finds inspiration, strength, and the will to dig deep on the darkest of days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What did it take for Reed to serve the most vulnerable in our community in the early days of COVID when all of her volunteers suddenly quit because of the public health crisis, or following the Lewiston mass shooting during the shelter-in-place order, or during any one of Maine\u2019s frigid winters the past 10 years?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Erin
Now a volunteer, Kim Wettlaufer \u201980 of Lewiston, helps move cardboard boxes that are used in packaging free groceries given out at the center to those in need. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When asked, Reed’s words evoke the idea of compassion, an awareness of the needs of others, and the desire to help those in need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think of the quote \u2018To whom much is given, much is required.\u2019 To me, I\u2019m someone who was born in the U.S., I\u2019m healthy, I have a solid family. All that puts me ahead of 90 percent of the people in the world. I don\u2019t know how, when you work in a place where everyday you see life is way more precarious than we like to think, how you don\u2019t help,\u201d Reed said.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of that compassion comes from the fact Reed\u2019s grandparents were Irish immigrants, coming to the U.S. from County Cork and County Tyrone. In Detroit her grandmother worked as a domestic worker and her grandfather at a manufacturing job in the auto industry. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe reality is no one else will do this. No one else will cook lunch for the community every day, no one else will do paperwork to get kids out of refugee camps. What we do is not fun or easy but we can\u2019t just walk away,\u201d Reed said. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to go home at the end of the day. My clients can\u2019t get jobs until I help them get a work permit. If their landlord is asking for a rent check and their kids are hungry, an hour of my time could change their life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Erin
Reed works inside the organization\u2019s food bank guiding new clients who came to fill out the food pantry’s registration forms. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Since Reed took over as the center\u2019s executive director in 2014, she\u2019s grown the center\u2019s reach, increasing the staff from one to four full-time employees and the number of families the Center’s Food Pantry helps feed each week from around 100 to upwards of 200. The center now helps an average of 100 people a year find jobs and it annually serves a total of 4,000 individuals in the Lewiston area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, next month Reed will announce the final stage of a fundraising campaign for the center\u2019s new home after the nonprofit raised more than $2 million to build the 5,500-square-foot, $4.9 million center that will be located downtown on Bates Street. [March 2024 update: The center has now raised $4 million, more than 80 percent of the project budget.] <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it\u2019s built next year, the work of providing a food pantry, soup kitchen, day shelter, and resource center will move from the basement of Trinity Episcopal Church, where the nonprofit has rented space since 2001. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe\u2019s taken it to a whole new level,\u201d said Wettlaufer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Erin
Reed searches for and checks off the names of clients who registered for the food pantry’s weekly distribution of free groceries, which occurs every Thursday. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Part of what led Reed to find her work at the center were her years at Bates, before she graduated with a degree in sociology in 2008.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reed found the Trinity Jubilee Center within 48 hours of arriving on campus when her AESOP trip went there to volunteer in the soup kitchen. Afterward, she would ride her bike down to help at the center in whatever way she could. Then she served the Harward Center for Community Partnerships as a student volunteer fellow, coordinating Bates volunteers at the Trinity Jubilee Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reed still works with the Harward Center, guiding student volunteers and those looking to job shadow. Darby Ray, the Harward Center\u2019s director, called Reed a \u201ctransformative leader.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“The culture on campus was that if you were excited about something, go for it. That was a great mindset to send us out into the world with.” <\/p>\nErin Reed ’08<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe\u2019s amazing not only because of the impact she and her team have, but because they are profoundly relational and humble. There\u2019s not enough of that today,\u201d Ray said. \u201cErin is one of the most humble and understated leaders in our community. She\u2019s not about the fanfare or the attention. She\u2019s about supporting the vulnerable members of our community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reed said the Bates philosophy to try, explore, and adventure inspired her to believe she could do anything she wanted. She belonged to nine clubs and organizations at Bates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was amazing being around people who were so curious and so engaged. The culture on campus was that if you were excited about something, go for it. Learn all about it, get involved, don’t be intimidated, just jump in. That was a great mindset to send us out into the world with,\u201d Reed said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when Reed reflects on her time at Bates, she also calls her younger self naive for how she tried to help the world simply by joining in protests for social justice causes. In the end, it was a single fundraiser her junior year that showed her a better way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A friend who worked in Commons was helping to fundraise for another Commons employee who was getting treatment for breast cancer. Reed joined the effort, helping to organize the sale of homemade fudge outside Commons to raise money for the sick woman. Not long after, while studying at a table in the dining hall, she looked up and saw the young mother whom she was helping, whom she had never met.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Erin
\u201cThis is my place in the world. I don’t know how I could get up every day and do something I didn’t really believe in,” Reed said. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe was still pretty sick. It was so sweet watching everyone come from behind workstations and fuss over her,\u201d Reed said. \u201cIt really drove home to me what matters: Helping out other people in your own community. You can make a big difference by putting your energy there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost 20 years later, Reed lives that experience every day. Now it\u2019s difficult for her to go shopping at Home Depot or the grocery store. Everywhere she goes, she sees people the center has helped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGoing shopping can take a very long time,\u201d she said with a laugh. \u201cIn every department there is someone who we helped get a job. They are so excited, they want to thank you. They want to tell you about their kids. That\u2019s been a constant for years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, what it takes for Erin Reed to charge into a 12- or 14-hour work day \u2014 an all-too common experience for her \u2014 is knowing herself and the kind of meaningful work she needs to do, work that embraces our shared humanity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is my place in the world,\u201d she said with a shrug. \u201cI don’t know how I could get up every day and do something I didn’t really believe in. If people come and ask you for help, how could you say, \u2018No?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As an example, Reed shared a story of a local man who is on oxygen and lives in his car. He regularly comes into the center and asks for help, handing over his oxygen machine to Reed or others on the center staff so they can plug it in and charge it for him, usually while they are busy helping other clients. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe\u2019s always very grateful. It\u2019s a huge thing for him. He doesn\u2019t have anywhere else to do that,\u201d Reed said. \u201cYou don\u2019t realize how kind and how resilient people are.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In challenging times, Erin Reed ’08 is resolute in doing the important and life-changing work as executive director of Lewiston’s Trinity Jubilee Center. Here’s what it takes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1705,"featured_media":159079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[7,30,31],"tags":[4087,8823,12336],"class_list":["post-158973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-civic-engagement","category-lewiston-auburn","tag-harward-center-for-community-partnerships","tag-trinity-jubilee-center-of-lewiston","tag-what-it-took"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1705"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158973"}],"version-history":[{"count":44,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162728,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158973\/revisions\/162728"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}