Recycling Grace Women’s Center open house Tuesday

A long line of women are waiting to knock on the door at Recycling Grace Women’s Center, a faith-based facility for women who want to be free from addictions. The line will soon be getting shorter since the program is adding a second site.

Recycling Grace will have an open house and ribbon cutting from 11 a.m.- 1 p.m. Tuesday at the program’s second location Linda House, 704 Kinzer St., Poplar Bluff.

The first location on Apple Street opened five years ago and the second location will provide room for seven additional women to be helped.

Recycling Grace CEO and founder Sandra Mick explains the program offers the resources and a safe space for the women to heal from their addictions

The property on Kinzer, as well as the apartments next door, were donated to the program and Mick said, they “will serve as an extension of what we already have.”

Mick understands the women and their problems. She talks about the impact a cycle of substance abuse has on a family and considers herself fortunate the cycle in her life was broken by God.

“What if the cycle had not been broken in my life with me raising my family,” Mick said. “We usually follow what we see in others’ lives, such as a cycle of poverty, substance abuse.”

Having received God’s gift, Mick wants to give to others and women who have benefitted from the Recycling Grace program want to share their stories and praises.

One of the women calls herself “a runner,” but she’s surprised not only her family and herself by staying at Recycling Grace. She has developed a sense of calm. Her personal story includes the deaths of her mother and cousin and her losing custody of her daughter. After 12 days at Recycling Grace, she said, “I am so proud to be here.”

She and others like her describe the atmosphere as looking and feeling like home.

Another resident who has been clean for more than a year, said “I was pretty broken and lost. I’ve been to other programs. I believe this work is awesome and something stuck. I have been locked up, I had lost my children and wasn’t sure anything was left for me.”

She now travels with Mick and has spearheaded a quit smoking movement in the program. She explained “a revival is happening and God has told me it is time to take care of my body.”

Another program graduate who has been free from drugs more than three years said, “It changed my life. I learned how to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ that broke every chain and gave me freedom, joy and hope and taught me truth, how to love, how to be loved and the truth of how God sees me. Recycling Grace blessed me with exactly what I needed when I didn’t even know what I needed. That’s just like God though, to be right where you need him, right when you need him, so that when you finally quit trying to do it on your own, you can just submit to Him and trust Him.”

She continued, “And, He will do the rest. The gifts I received from Recycling Grace I am still unwrapping. They build on each other. It’s a Ephesians 3:20 kind of gift that Recycling Grace opened the door to for me. I will always be grateful for Recycling Grace and the wonderful women of faith that give spiritual guidance and counsel and teach truth for those of us that need so desperately to know it.”

Mick said, “This is God showing ladies He loves them.”

Mick gauges their progress in many ways. She watches them when they come to the center, when they are able to work, when they once again post on their cell phones and when they get their children back.

Not all of them are alike, “it is a process,” Mick said.

Some have been incarcerated but are now working in the community. Two women from a neighboring town came to the center and turned their lives around. When the first one returned home, she talked a friend into coming to Recycling Grace. They are now hoping to get a support group started in their hometown.

Mick recalls, one mother whose’s life was turned around. She is working two jobs and babysitting so her daughter can go to college.

As Recycling Grace women and board member and vice president Ron Glidewell work on the Kinzer street house, Glidewell said, “This is a good, God-given ministry. I have a God-given desire to help this amazing program. God has blessed me to serve and be a part of this ministry.”

Mick describes Glidewell as being “respectful of the ladies and he is a good example of what a man should be like.”

Other board officers are Belinda Winters, president; Sharon Huett, secretary; Karen Berry, treasurer; and other board members are Sonya DiCiro, David Johnson, Jim Pearle, Paula Shaw and Marsha Shivley.

Mick said, there is much work to be done, but “God has made a way. I think he will continue.” She is also “thankful to the community members and general contractors who have donated labor. Every dime donated will be used for the ministry.”

She reminds everyone, donations to Recycling Grace meet the requirements as a 501(c)(3) organization for tax purposes.