JR Afternoon with Chris Renwick
People Of Impact Organization
All right, welcome back. We are here at People of Impact at Freedom Like Here in LaPierre and I am joined by Laura Herphy who created this wonderful, wonderful community here. Nice to talk with you. Thank you, Chris. I appreciate you having us on here. Yeah, I want you to tell me a little bit about you because you had a whole career before this. So tell me a little bit about your background and how we got to this point. Yes, sir. So I still have a career, so I work a full-time job while I'm maintaining. What do you do? I'm actually a wealth advisor. Oh, good. I could use some advice while you're here. Anytime you want pro bono. Oh, very, very good. All right. So what is your, what do you do on a daily basis? What's your kind of nine to five? Nine to five is my real job. And then right after that, Freedom Like is another six to ten. All right. So you spend your whole career and you're dealing with numbers. You're trying to take care of people's assets and things like that. What possessed you to get into this world of helping others? That's a great question. So I'm a former reserve police officer for the City of Madison Heights about 20 years ago, so I'm dating myself. Thank you. I travel the world and do humanitarian work every year. And a few years ago, I had a life-threatening accident that I almost died in. And so I am a true believer in the Lord. And so I prayed about it. And I've always wanted to help more in America. And I thought, what could I do to help more? And I prayed and prayed and have family members that are veterans. And I have quite a bit of friends that are veterans. And I've seen what they've gone through after they get back. And just the heartache that they go through and not being able to come back to civilian life or having that independence they had before they left. And so back in 2014, I started my nonprofit organization and saved as much money as I could. And then last year in January, I finally stepped foot on this property, which we call Freedom Like. And so now I'm here and I'm here to help veterans. So tell me a little bit about the veterans that you have here. We have one of them, Samantha Don, who's an Army veteran. Hi there. Who gave me the tour earlier of this beautiful facility. From your perspective, what is this? What is this place? It is a place for veterans to feel like they belong, to be around other veterans to know that they are not alone, to connect and grow and transition from whether it's from military to civilian or homelessness to independent living. That's kind of what it's about. We took a tour of the main house, which will sleep. 14 in the main house. 14 in the main house. We just don't see houses like this anymore. It's very unique. And it's already kind of has this life to it. And I understand that there's still a lot of work that you want to do to kind of make it that finished product. But you are already helping others. Samantha being one of them and of course others as well that live here already. So you've got 14 here in this house and then you've got another building over here that will house. That's the department. So that's independent living for the department. Okay. Yes. And how many can we'll be in there? We can have 10 in there, 10 to 11 in there. So you could, I mean, reasonably, you're going to be able to have 25ish people here. Veterans? Yes, sir. All veterans only. Veterans only. And they don't need to be struggling with substance abuse. There is no precondition for them. They can come here and fish. They can come here and play a purist that you have bees that you harvested honey from. You're going to grow your own food here. You're going to have a chicken coop. You're going to have fruit trees in the front. This will be a completely sustainable living facility for people who are trying to assimilate themselves from military life back to civilian life. Is that fair? Absolutely. Yes. And so what is the vision here for you? What do you want to see? Where do you envision this place? So Chris, 10, 15 years down the road. Fantastic question. So we live in the best country in the world, hands down. And from someone that's experienced it from traveling around the world, so blessed to be an American. And so so thankful for Veterans Day, so hats off to all the veterans out there. And so my vision is hopefully that this place grows and we get to help all these veterans out. And in the transitional housing, they can stay up to 24 months. It is a three phase process that I created myself. And we do know it's successful because we've already have veterans that went through the process and we have veterans that are exiting out of the process. Wonderful. Yes. You can stay up to 24 months. You don't have to stay 24 months. Okay. And so the veterans we have now are already occupying our apartments. Okay. So the apartments are already done. There's no vacancy there, but the plan is essentially to grow and operate and essentially have more of these opportunities elsewhere. We don't just want to stay here in Le Pier. Hopefully we can network and grow out there. So we just so you're aware, we have sober living. PTSD, anxiety, depression, homeless veterans, or just veterans in need. So this place we service everyone. We have a chapel here as well. I'm sure you noticed all the different buildings. The reason why I have so many buildings is I went through to all the different VA organizations. I created buildings for them here. I already met with all these different organizations and I said, you know what, I need you guys to come here for these veterans. So there's no excuse. So then therefore they're getting what they deserve. They don't have to sit here and figure out, well, what do I need next? What do I need next? Well, guess what? They're already going to be here to help that. It's spectacular. And then of course, you know, you've, I just walking around talking to people. You pour everything into this. I mean, you put you poured everything into it. My life savings. Everything. Yeah. Yeah. This is 100% funded by me right now. We are a 501c3. We haven't applied for federal grants, but what we do want to do is we want to voice our, you know, our needs to the general public. So I want them to come out here to see what we're doing, like whoever has the opportunity to come out here so you can actually see the lives that we change and what the vision is. And so we definitely do need support as well too, because I can't keep doing this by myself. Well, I've watched enough shark tank to know that if people are willing to put of themselves into whatever venture they are in, that it will be successful. And with partners that are willing to step up and put windows in these buildings or put roofs on these buildings, it's very much a community aspect here that that you've built and will continue to build. And so now the goal is what? Get people in those beds, get people in these rooms, make sure that you are giving veterans an opportunity to come back to a place that's safe, that is like-minded to something that they've already been through, and then ready to get them off into their life again. That's correct. Yeah. No veteran left behind. It's a buddy. It's a buddy to buddy forever system here. So you come here, you're going to feel like family because we're going to make sure you feel that way. You're not alone. There's others out there that care about you. Sam, do you feel that way? Absolutely. We are a family. Is that the community that's being created here? Yeah, immediately forever. Yes. It's spectacular. God bless you. Thank you for what you're doing for people. We need more people like you. Thank you. Laura Herphy. Thank you. And we're going to continue to watch this and grow with you. So thank you for this. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. That's Laura Herphy, the creator of this wonderful community, Samantha Dawn. We'll take a break. Come back for more here on J Air Afternoon.
November 11, 2024 ~ Chris talks with Laura Herfy, Chair of the Board of People of Impact, an organization that's helping veterans here in Michigan that need some help.