August 29, 2003

"Gerry Roll, Hazard Perry County Community Ministries"

An interview with Gerry Roll, Executive Director of the Hazard Perry County Community Ministries, and a 2002 Leadership for a Changing World awardee. Questions and answers will appear below starting at 1 pm EST on Friday, August 29. You may ask a question in advance by clicking on the "Submit a Question" button. Due to time constraints, not all questions will be answered. You may need to refresh your screen during the interview to read the most recent responses. Read background

Leadership for a Changing World
Welcome to today's Leadership Talks with Gerry Roll, Executive Director of the Hazard Perry County Community Ministries, and a 2002 Leadership for a Changing World awardee.

Gerry, can you tell us how you came to social justice work?

Gerry Roll
I was blessed with this job as a result of my own personal struggle of being laid off from the banking industry, being a single mom, and getting my college degree as an adult learner, but I think I have always been an advocate for social justice, probably stemming from my own feelings of being persecuted. I think it started on the playground in grade school being picked on because I was big and clumsy. Being different meant being inadequate – it took a long time to figure out that being different simply meant my gifts were not the same as everybody else’s. Getting there required making a lot of mistakes, sometimes doing the very things that give people the opportunity to say, “See, I knew she was no good!” Like having children out of wedlock, abusing drugs or alcohol, being evicted, flunking out of school. But in the long term, it took all of those things to bring me to where I am today, and that makes me very passionate about focusing on people’s gifts, which is what gets things done, not showcasing their mistakes or frailties.

Chicago
People in other parts of Kentucky have been faced with homelessness after severe storms led to flooding. Do these kinds of disasters often lead people into a long-term lack of housing? What sort of role can a program like yours play in disaster recovery, in addition to organizations like the Red Cross?

Gerry Roll
Because we’re a local organization we, in an emergency like that, have a lot of community-based credibility, so when folks have a flood or a disaster they know to call us. We’re the first people to come to mind and we’ll find that people say because our house has been flooded or we don’t have water, we don’t have gas, we’ve had to leave in the middle of the night, so they know to call us. We will contact the partners we need, the Red Cross, FEMA, the city, county. We can then get everybody to the table to set up emergency response and a point of contact for other people in our county. Because of our history of doing that, not only does the community know to contact us, those agencies know that we will be the first point of contact for a lot of folks in crisis. So emergency response is easier. Solving the long-term issues are much more difficult because we can provide emergency shelter through clothing, food, water, but when families live in the kind of poverty that families live in in our area they may have insurance, which many times they do not, but they may not have flood insurance or they may not have enough insurance to cover their loss. We have a lot of folks who own land, but no way to put a safe, decent structure on that land. Then we have the question of whether we want to invest the resources in rebuilding in a place where we know it’s going to flood or there’s potential for another disaster. Our answer has been to work towards more housing out of the flood plain to give people better options, they aren’t just stuck having to go right back to a situation they know won’t work in the long run.

Ft. Lauderdale
Like many rural communities facing the current economic realities is especially hard for today's youth. Do you find that folks are focused on just "getting out" of Perry County? If so, how do you continue to build a community there?

Gerry Roll
That’s a huge problem I think all over rural America. We as a nation have convinced our young people they have to have a lot of “things” in order to be happy. The big SUV, the huge house, the hustle-bustle of being in a big economy, that’s what they see on TV and that’s what they think they need. So we try to do a better job of instilling in our young people a value in their history, their culture, their community. We work very hard in our youth programs and even in our early childhood programs to show our young people what’s here that’s meaningful.

We’re right in the middle of the Daniel Boone Forest. We have lakes and streams. We have a sense of calm that you don’t find in a city. It’s hard to really articulate what a sense of community feels like, but we try to act that out in everything we do so our young people feel that there’s real value in being here, the community where they are surrounded by support. What we find is now, and I’ve been here about 13 years, we have children who started in some of our programs early on and who are now going away to college, they do miss that sense of community that they had here and some of them are coming back or want to come back. So I believe that if we continue to build a community that takes care of itself, if we continue to look at our schools and our child care centers, if we look for jobs that pay decent wages and not put in just a bunch of stock factories or other low wage jobs, listen to the young people and try to build some of things that they are looking for, then they will want to come back.

Crosby, MN
Homelessness, child care, affordable housing... these are usually thought of as urban issues. How do you find your work different from that of similar urban organizations?

Gerry Roll
Resources. We almost have to get up and dance to get folks to notice us out here. Especially if we are tackling typically urban issues like homelessness and childcare. Public policy is set around urban definitions and it’s hard for people who have never been out of the beltway to understand our barriers. Most people can’t even agree on what rural is. So, we have to deal with individual perceptions, good or bad, about what our needs are or should be, or whether we even deserve any attention, because the big cities’ problems are so obviously huge.

And it’s not all kum-bay-ah among us either. Rural folks are their own worst enemy sometimes; we all struggle to maintain the few resources we have, which tends to make folks territorial and defensive about sharing and creating a united front. That’s why our biggest accomplishments have been around getting a multitude of partners around the table for one project, we even cross county lines. If you live in a rural area, you know that’s no small feat!

Plano, Texas
What is the role of religion in the HPC Community Ministries? How is that role adapted for the people you are trying to help?

Gerry Roll
Most of us here belong to the Christian faith, which means we model our lives after a fellow named Jesus who was sent here by God to teach us how to be human. That means we try to do a really good job of acting like Jesus, not talking about Jesus. So if we use that model that means you love everybody. We love the smelly, the drunk, the arrogant, the bureaucrat, the high, the low, just love everybody. That’s our job. It isn’t our job to judge people, to discriminate against people, to decide what’s right or what’s wrong. It is only our job to love.

Now we deliver our services with that premise and within the limitations of the secular requirements that we have to deal with. We’ve been able to strike a good balance in that. If secular requirements conflicts with our faith, we don’t do it. We don’t have that problem. So basically our faith is very strong. We deliver services rooted in that faith. In my mind, what God chooses to do with that or what a human being chooses to do with that is between them. What I do is between me and my God. And I think you’ll see that in all of Community Ministries’ board and staff, and we’re not all worshipping the same God, but we choose not to spend a whole lot of time arguing over whose version of the Scriptures is the best one. We choose to roll up our sleeves and get the work done. We’re all worshipping a loving God.

Knoxville, TN
How do you collect input from the community and from the people you serve?

Gerry Roll
Community Ministries was created as a vehicle for community input; our mission is to LEAD the community in meeting basic human needs. I think that was real foresight on the part of our founding mothers, they knew they didn’t have the answer, but they could lead the community in solving the problem. Our board is representative of the community we serve as well as the community at large, local governments, churches and anyone else who has an interest in our work. We are open and honest about all we do, and we share everything. We also are very visible, in church, at the Chamber of Commerce, in the grocery store. That’s one of the benefits of rural work, everybody knows your business and they aren’t afraid to talk about it!

New Haven, CT
What tools do you use to get people to realize the link between community needs (i.e. building a factory and child care)?

Gerry Roll
We do a lot of community work. We are always at the Chamber of Commerce, industrial planning boards, the ministerial associations, the civic clubs. We don’t just talk to the people that are in the same business we are. Many times I have been in one of these rooms and there would be a group of men talking about the great $6-an-hour jobs that this factory would bring. And I’m the one that would have to ask the question who will work there? And then once you ask that, who will take care of their children? How will they get there? You know, where will these people live? What kind of housing do we have that’s available for someone making $6 an hour? They’re used to that now. Years ago, those were the surprising questions that nobody was ready to answer. Now I don’t have to ask the questions anymore. We’re all at the table together and they know that’s our role is to keep on top of those issues. But there are national studies about the economic impact on child care and housing in your community building. We had to do the research, we had to put together the information in a format that made it relevant and applicable to our community, and that takes some work and some effort. And I see that as our role in the community and in the chamber and industrial planning board meetings. Our role is to bring that information to the table and venues where it’s not typically a priority. That takes a lot of work and that’s our job.

Lincoln, NE
Many times you have residents working more than one job to make ends meet. How do you motivate people to spare some of their extra time to help the community survive?

Gerry Roll
Actually our unemployment is so high here people are lucky to have one job, much less two. However, we do have a segment of our population who work lots of different odd jobs to just try to make ends meet. And then we have folks who have better jobs that are also very busy; they have full-time jobs. I think the issue is that we are all busy and we have to prioritize what’s important to us as individuals and work on those priorities. My job is to make what we do a priority for the people I’m trying to motivate. Sometimes that means coming up with different options that give people meaningful jobs to do during times that they can do them. Sometimes that means if I’m dealing with folks who have resources I need, like money, I ask them for their money. If I’m dealing with corporate folks and they have land, ask them for their land. The work is in figuring out how to make my priority their priority because no matter how busy a person is, they will do the things that are important to them. Most of my work focuses on making it important to them, then they will do it.

Takoma Park, MD
Hi Gerry!
I've had the pleasure of meeting you before and you often say --you needed the Perry County "community" much more than they needed you.
Why?

Gerry Roll
I was a single mom in a huge city where everybody spent most of their time taking care of themselves. I had two kids and I needed help. I needed community. I needed people in my business. My boys needed attention from men. I needed other moms to talk with. I needed to be able to call somebody and ask them to take care of my children for a while, an hour or two. I was looking for somebody, a place where you make casseroles for each other when you get into trouble. I believe those things used to happen in neighborhoods and I don’t know that we have that neighborhood sense in big urban centers anymore, but I have been challenged on that. All I know is I did not have it before and I have it here. I know that this community cares about me and my family and what happens to us, and I feel that same regard for everybody else in my community. I didn’t have that before. So no matter what I do here I will never do enough to give back what I have gotten from living in this community.

Seattle, WA
Does your community come together well across social groups: religious, service groups like Elks, chambers of commerce? I feel that a town needs a gathering "place" that is nondenominational (but open to church activities as well.) I have just come from an area with no clear gathering place or time (like a community wide picnic or festival with a local emphasis). The town was a tourist town on the coast. How important is one central "community place" do you think?

Gerry Roll
I agree that there has to be a place. I feel like in lots of ways Community Ministries is that place. Some of that is because of our ruralness. We can bring people together to discuss issues and folks feel welcome. They know that while religion may permeate the room, it won’t be a religious event. The civic groups know that even though we are doing charitable work, we are not going to take over their purpose. The government, the local government and the state government, respect our ability to bring the grassroots folks along, though frequently we end up with exactly that, a room full of people you would never assume you would see in the same room.

Aside from that, I also believe one of the benefits of being in rural America is that we do still have an annual festival. Ours is coming up in 2 weeks where everybody comes to town and we’ll see people for 3 days that we haven’t seen since the festival last year. We do have churches that come together for potluck events to talk about how to maximize resources. The city government and the county government come together. I don’t know how communities survive that don’t have the ability to cross over and share each other’s resources. I don’t think it can happen if you don’t.

Miami, FL
Much of your work seems to involve working with multiple partners with sometimes very diverse interests. Can you share any lessons from your coalition-building efforts?

Gerry Roll
We go at it this way: Collaboration, in its military roots, meant working with the enemy. So we sort of know up front when we start something new we’re collaborating. Our job as leaders is to get everybody to then be honest and forthright about what they really need, what they want, and what they are willing to give up for the mission. When people start to do that, they become partners. Out of our collaborations, we have developed a few really meaningful partnerships, and that’s where things start to happen. Everybody isn’t going to be a true partner, some won’t even be collaborators, but we capitalize on what we have, never focus on what we don’t, and keep moving forward. Eventually, people want to gravitate towards the positive energy. The key to being successful in building and maintaining partnerships is being willing to be honest about what you really need versus what you want, being willing to give up things you want but someone else needs, ceding control to the community when it’s time, and being able to gracefully walk away when you really want to get angry, take all your cookies and go home.

Dunbar, Scotland
In developing successors, sustainability for your work, what are the most critical things you have done/are doing to equip others to take the work forward?

Gerry Roll
I try very hard to never make anything we do about me. And that’s the inclination generally for folks to begin to feel like as long as there’s one dynamic person working they can slack off. So I make a conscious daily effort to engage board members, staff members, community people in pieces of the work that we do. I try to ask a lot of questions that engage people in formulating solutions even though I might feel like I have the answer already, I could do it faster myself. I want this organization to survive if I walk out that door and get hit by a truck. I am not interested in receiving credit for any of this work. I want this work credited to this community of people who want to build a better place to live. So philosophically, those are the things I have to do every day.

Logistically, we have taken steps to ensure our viability by treating the work we do as a business. We pay decent wages based on the work that needs to be done. That’s in our budget. So if a key staff person leaves we can find someone that’s well qualified to do that job because we’ve budgeted enough money to pay someone to do it. We depend on our volunteers and the mission mindedness of our staff, but we’re also realistic about keeping the organization afloat with people that could do this work. We look at every person we deal with whether it’s a client, a board member, a politician, a volunteer as a vital part of what we’re doing. So everyone owns the Ministries and people take care of things they own.

Washington, DC
What has been your biggest obstacle since you began your work in Kentucky?

Gerry Roll
Isolation, and I don’t mean I feel isolated. I mean people who need to understand what we’re trying to do, people who have the resources to support our efforts, they romanticize about the stereotypical Appalachia. They want to send boxes of shoes and clothes to us in the mail, but they don’t want to come here and see us live what we live, experience our lives and what we deal with day-in and day-out. It’s not easy to come here. You can’t fly here. You can’t take a taxi here. You can’t take a train here. There’s no bus. So people want us to come to them and explain about what we’re doing, but they don’t want to come here. Now that we’ve gotten extra attention on a national level people do come here occasionally. But when they decide to come it’s real funny because they are so surprised at how hard it is to get here. And I think to really understand what we’re trying to do here and what we’ve been able to do here, you have to come and see us.

Our other obstacle is our numbers. Rural communities are losing population. We’re losing people, so it’s hard to justify making a huge financial investment in a community of 5,000 when you have communities of 500,000 that are suffering, too. It’s very difficult to compete with New York City, San Francisco, and Dallas. It’s hard to make a case even though I feel like the people in Appalachia deserve just as much as the folks in the city. We can’t all live in the city, we’ve got to start branching out and making use of our other communities.

And our last obstacle is resources. We don’t have a philanthropic community serving the greater Hazard area. So many times where in a city you would have a civic center or a community center or youth programs sponsored by a corporation or a foundation that serves that vicinity or that state, we don’t have it. So we have to work harder for the resources we have.

NY, NY
I read your op-ed about CBS' attempt to make a reality TV show, The Real Beverly Hillbillies. Do you know the status of the show? What else have you been doing to raise awareness of their efforts?

Gerry Roll
The last thing I heard is that CBS will not commit to not doing the show, but there has not been a lot of movement towards doing the show. The Center for Rural Strategies in Whitesburg, Kentucky, is the lead agency in that effort to stop that show. My support for them is personal and as an organization to sign onto their efforts and to talk publicly or write publicly anytime I have an opportunity to do that. So my role is more supportive, but I would recommend anyone who’s interested to follow that on their Web site, which I believe is ruralstrategies.org.

Leadership for a Changing World
That's about all the time we have for today. We have one last question that we like to ask all our guests:

Gerry, how do you sustain yourself and your staff while working on difficult and sometimes frustrating social issues?

Gerry Roll
I think we have an advantage here again in being rural. We are not just co-workers; we are each other’s community. We shop in the same grocery stores, go the same churches, our kids go to school together, we show up at the same places at the same time a lot. We have to agree not to talk about issues sometimes, but just to have fun. Because we’re more grassroots than bureaucratic, it’s easier to just say go home, I’ll take up your slack today. But we also have to balance the fact that we do have to operate like a business. I try to make sure that everybody really knows we’re in this together, and to be honest about what our limitations are both individually and as an organization.

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