Dr. Faith R. Pasley Wins the 2023 Cabell Brand Hope Award
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The annual Cabell Brand Hope Award, which celebrates outstanding service, leadership, and dedication to fighting poverty, proudly announces its 2023 winner: Dr. Faith R. Pasley, M.D., FAAFP.
Dedication to Healthcare for All
Dr. Pasley embodies the Cabell Brand Hope Award in her work as the Roanoke Rescue Mission’s Volunteer Medical Director at the Fralin Free Clinic. As the only free clinic in the state located on-site at a shelter, the Fralin Free Clinic helps thousands of people experiencing homelessness get the healthcare they need each year. Dr. Pasley’s work provides crucial healthcare and wellness services to people experiencing homelessness. She reviews all patient charts, provides patient care, and actively recruits other physicians and providers.
Holistic Care: For Everyone
Additionally, Dr. Pasley played a key role in developing the newly implemented Medical Street Outreach. The program seeks to decrease the number of unsheltered people living in outdoor camps throughout the Roanoke region. The scale of services the clinic provides is daunting.
In 2022, the Fralin Free Clinic provided 5,370 healthcare and wellness encounters including primary & preventative care, mental & behavioral health services, medication assistance, dentistry, optometry, and patient education. That same year, it provided 3,620 separate patient visits. Rescue Mission CEO Lee Clark estimates that the clinic has served over 12,000 different patients under Dr. Pasley’s leadership.
A Lifetime of Service
Dr. Pasley has guided the work of the Fralin Free Clinic for over 18 years. Her vision and dedication proved critical as the clinic faced the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Pasley was honored with the Rescue Misison’s Mission Angel award this past July for her efforts, which allowed the Rescue Mission to continue providing life-saving care 24 hours a day, 7 days a week during the pandemic.
Her colleagues at the Rescue Mission also note that she is as compassionate in her duties as she is professional, and that her work has provided hope, healing, and empowerment to many people in the region. Dr. Pasley became the first board-certified female family physician in the Roanoke Valley, and from the very beginning, she has dedicated herself to a lifetime of learning, helping, and teaching others.
A Deserved Recognition
Indeed, Dr. Pasley is a source of vital care for low-income people. She is inspiration to her peers. Above all, however, she is a source of hope for our community. We are proud to honor her with the 2023 Cabell Brand Hope Award.
How Jessi and Charles Make a Difference
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At times, it can feel impossible to make a difference in your own life. And it can often feel even harder to change someone else’s life. Jessi and Charles St. Clair are a great example of how big a difference we can make. They show a little hope and a lot of determination can start a chain reaction.
When talking to them, it doesn’t take long to understand that their support of TAP comes from somewhere deep. Having struggled and succeeded in their own lives means they know what’s at stake. When they talk about giving, isn’t a performance or a gesture toward what they think they ought to be doing. They see supporting TAP’s programs as a chance to invest in part of an even bigger system of supports that makes a huge difference. Charles and Jessi know firsthand the good that comes from believing in people and investing in communities. At TAP, we know we’re very lucky to be their partners in community change.
WALKING THE WALK
TAP exists because people from southwest Virginia cared about making life better—for themselves and their neighbors. The interconnected nature of a small region like ours wasn’t lost on Cabell Brand. He founded TAP in 1965 believing that the fates of both affluent people and those struggling were not merely intertwined, but separated by fewer degrees than often suggested.
In short, Cabell saw that it’s our duty as citizens to fight for the opportunities our less fortunate brothers and sisters deserve. Jessi and Charles are two supporters who don’t just believe this idea, they act on it.
BEING THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE
Before Jessi and Charles opened their own business, Affordable and Dependable Auto Services, Jessi worked at ARCH Services advocating for unhoused people. She took on that work with particular passion and dedication she attributes to the fact that she has experienced homelessness herself. “I’m passionate because of living it,” she says.
During her time as an advocate, Jessi learned that it’s common for people to lament the problems they see—whether it’s rising crime, homelessness, or even just a sense of hopelessness. It is a little less common for people to support the organizations working to solve them. She shakes her head as she says, “Lots of times those organizations don’t get all the attention—but they always have a need.”
Like Jessi, Charles also experienced homelessness. He worked hard to get where he is, and he’s every bit as candid about his experience as you would expect a good mechanic to be. He’s quick to emphasize that it’s a system that—like an engine—takes serious input and energy to work. Now with a successful business, he and Jessi want to contribute to the system that helped them turn things around. As Charles puts it, “The system has given me a lot. So, when I can take some kind of action…it feels good to give back.”
ROLLING UP THEIR SLEEVES TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE
When asked why they chose to support TAP, Charles is quick to answer. He says, “It’s such a wide-ranging organization—whether it’s helping with school supplies, domestic violence, homelessness, people re-entering society from incarceration.” Jessi and Charles know what it takes to bounce back from a setback. They know the guts a person needs to look failure in the eye and come back stronger. They also know that a little help can make all the difference.
Listening to them speak about the hope and determination they feel when doing their part to make a difference isn’t just inspiring to us here at TAP. It’s the lifeblood of what we do. Whenever the world feels exhausting and overwhelming, a talk with Jessi and Charles is exactly what the doctor ordered. They’re as clear-eyed as any about how big the need is out there, and how it feels when you’re struggling. And they’re ready to be the change they want to see in their community.
At TAP, we’re not just honored to have their support. We’re inspired by it. Folks like Jessi and Charles are a source of hope and determination to us here at TAP. They challenge us in the best possible way to live up to our mission.
Written by Stacey Sheppard, director of TAP’s Domestic Violence Services.
Violence is Up Statewide
Sexual and domestic violence advocacy agencies across the Commonwealth conducted a needs assessment in Virginia, with some shocking results. The forthcoming study’s findings for the Roanoke Valley make for no easier reading than the rest of it. As the director of TAP’s Domestic Violence Services program, I know all too well that domestic violence is here in our community. The good news is that together we can help stop it.
As an advocate working in the system described in the study, I feel both incredibly proud to be part of our statewide efforts to keep families safe and certain our communities must continue to help us in this work! The need was high, even before the pandemic. When we join the fight against domestic violence, we’re helping our neighbors, families, friends, and colleagues.
Elevated levels of violence in the past few years are testing the limits of the system statewide. As the report’s interviewers put it, “we could see and feel the cumulative stress/trauma in many of the agencies we visited.” High demand for critical services, burnout among workers, and threadbare funding streams to bolster advocacy programs—all of these and more raised the interviewers’ concerns. Further, these high rates of violence show no signs of slowing down. One advocate I know recently noted seeing “a lot more death than usual.” We are seeing more use of firearms, more untreated addiction, and an escalation in homelessness, food insecurities, and other needs. As one staff TAP DVS staff member put it, “The need and the lift is heavy.”
Doing Our Part to Stop Domestic Violence
At TAP DVS, we find it almost impossible to describe the work our advocates have done in the past few years. Even the term “superhero” comes up short. Our small staff, like everyone, has been navigating personal journeys of fear, anxiety, and confusion about the pandemic, and journeys of loss and grief and figuring out how to attend to their own health needs. They’ve worked tirelessly to find safe places for families to stay. They’ve responded to calls in the middle of the night over and over again, because they know what’s at stake.
They feel the weight of these challenges, but they’re made of stern stuff. Our front-line workers will put their best foot forward every day to save lives.
Among the forces buffeting our small staff have been an unprecedented level of burnout and stress; personal and family COVID-related needs; and the sense that no matter how hard they work, the number of people needing their skills and services is still rising. And the work is relentless, often entailing aiding clients who are in extreme danger. This means that both clients and staff spend hours—sometimes weeks—in a state of high alert. For the staff members who have clung on through these trials, and for the ones who joined the team knowing exactly what the need was, it was nothing short of heroic.
Since the start of COVID, the staff at TAP DVS has:
Answered some 2,057 hotline calls
Found safe housing for 118 individuals
Relocated and additional 49 individuals
Provided personalized safety-planning and advocacy to 468 families
Facilitated donations of thousands of household items, clothes, and furniture. Every one of these efforts represent a step to help stop domestic violence in our community.
Sharing the Burden
At an agency like TAP, and for a small team like DVS, having partners in this work is essential. Other agencies like the Sexual Assault Response & Advocacy (SARA) program, Family Service of Roanoke Valley, and many others help ease the burden. But they, too, are feeling the same effects of being overburdened and exhausted. Law enforcement and hospital emergency departments also respond to domestic and sexual violence 24/7 and still have to perform their work with fluctuating levels of COVID-19. They, too, also face high rates of violence.
As an advocate, I can recognize the signs of the stress and trauma described in the state assessment throughout the whole system. As the director and colleague of these incredible warriors in a daily battle for peace, I could not be prouder to walk beside them.
To Do the Work, We Need Your Help, Too
Not everyone has the experience, the emotional inclination, and the training to get right on the front lines and do domestic and sexual violence advocacy. Even without those things, you can get involved—and make a big difference.
The families we’re serving have often fled violent homes, and they need basic things that we can’t always provide. From diapers and formula, to groceries, new work attire, school supplies, and furniture for new apartments, our families are so often starting over with nothing.
We’re relocating more families than ever before, which means local donations give my staff the ability to answer questions with, “don’t worry about that part—you focus on staying safe, and taking care of your family, and we will take care of the details.” This is true here at TAP-DVS, and it’s also true of our partners. There are more families in need than before, and when they make brave choices to start new, violence-free lives, the concrete support we provide helps them keep going in tough moments. These things are small, but they help stop domestic violence by keeping a family in a safe situation.
Domestic violence is all around us, and it’s often so well-hidden we don’t recognize it until it’s gotten out-of-hand. But each time we make a safety plan or relocate a family, we help stop domestic violence in one more family.
This October, Help Stop Domestic Violence
If you have an opportunity this October, thank an advocate—they have saved a life, and in some cases, they’ve saved hundreds of lives. And they might have helped someone you know—someone you work with, live next to, are even related to.
If you want to do more and don’t know where to start, please consider making a donation to TAP-DVS. Or to one of our partners (they’re facing the same needs, too!). Consider helping out as a volunteer. Organize a fundraiser: get church groups, parent groups, even weekly poker games to contribute this month. Write editorials. Talk to your friends and neighbors. All of it helps. Whatever feels right, please consider doing something more this month.
Together we can use the month of October as an opportunity to step it up across the whole region. We can impact so many families when we work collectively. We do this work because it’s not just the right thing to do, but because it feels good to take a stand against violence.
On behalf of TAP Domestic Violence Services, the staff, and on behalf of survivors, we need your help. This October, take a stand with us.
-Stacey Sheppard, Director of TAP Housing and Human Services, October 2022
