We were lucky to catch up with Amy Mitchell recently and have shared our conversation below.
Amy, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
At the age of 19 I was pregnant with my first child Mariah and living off of government assistance. After giving birth to Mariah, I was robbed of every dime I had. I made poor decisions to try and provide for us and I was arrested and facing prison time and losing custody of my daughter. The night I was in jail I cried out to God. I told Him that I would do anything not to lose custody of my daughter. By the grace of God, I was released from jail before my daughter was removed from my custody, I got probation instead of prison and I was given a second chance.
At that time, I knew I wanted a better life for me and my child, but I did not know how to provide it. A couple years later I had my second child and not to long after I had him, I was injured in a domestic assault and was taken to Safe Home Domestic Violence Shelter. That was a pivotal point in my life. I was assigned a mentor, who encouraged me and connected me with the right resources. More important, she gave me hope and helped her me to believe in myself again. My kids and I moved into a transitional living home and, soon after, into our own apartment. My mentor walked me through each step, coaching and providing practical resources. 5 years later I bought my first home, which was my dream. My kids got into amazing schools and a good local church.
God has taken my time in transition and used it as the blueprint for my non-profit, Anchor Her. The daughter that I almost lost custody of, works with me side by side. We are helping give women the same opportunities that helped turn our lives around.
Amy, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
The mission of Anchor Her is to embrace, empower and ignite women impacted by incarceration, domestic violence and addiction. We offer gender responsive services. Anchor Her seeks to address the lack of follow through that women face in transition. When women get out of incarceration and addiction treatment centers, some of their biggest challenges lie ahead of them. That is where Anchor Her comes in. Anchor Her acts as a conduit in the community. We meet with women one on one that are in transition (transitional coaching) and connect them to mental health life coaches, support groups and practical resources.
We have a motto ” We will not decorate your pit”. I have seen a lot of programs that want to help people coming out of incarceration &addiction, but they truly only offer a handout and sometimes they do more harm than good. We offer a hand up. We want to help them help themselves. We are like a cast; we help immobilize them as they heal so they can successfully return to their families and communities. We believe when we help one woman, we are helping entire families and communities.
We have a support group that is bar none. It is a safe and compassionate place where women can drop anchor as they transition. This group is a huge support for women that are recovering from addiction. The women coming through our program are becoming leaders. We are training them to be transitional coaches. We are making a BIG dent in recidivism!
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
In 2020 Covid hit, and our world was in a panic, we had no safety protocols, no vaccine. The jails decided to shut down all their programs, including Anchor Her. AA/NA support groups were shut down. I was so unsure of what to do next. We were used to hosting our support group inside of corrections. Once everything shut down, we were hearing that people were dying of drug overdose faster than they were of Covid. I prayed for direction. One of the ladies I was mentoring lived in an Oxford house (transitional living home), she asked if I would have our support group at her Oxford home with 7 other women. So, we decided to take the precautions we knew of which was social distancing and washing our hands and give it a shot. After 2 weeks of meeting the news of our meeting got around and more and more women started coming from all over the city that were in recovery. There was a park across the street from the Oxford house so we moved our group to the park so we could still meet and social distance. We were so blessed, we never got rained out once. As winter approached and it started getting colder, I didn’t know what we were going to do. At this time, we had 30+ consistent women coming each week. I shared my story with a friend of mine, and he talked to a local coffee shop to see if they would let us move our group to their coffee shop and they said yes! This pivot really helped us find our sweet spot in reentry. Now we have developed an amazing transitional coaching program and reentry/recovery group.
Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?
When I was going through my divorce and my daughter, and I were trying to launch Anchor Her I would listen to Sarah Jakes Roberts (T.D. Jakes daughter) on YouTube pretty much every morning while I got ready for the day. She encouraged me so much! My daughter and I dreamed of taking a trip to California or Denver to see her speak in person. Not too long after getting our 501c3 nonprofit status we found out that Sarah Jakes-Roberts was coming to Kansas City on her Women Evolve Tour, so we immediately got tickets. Then they announced that they were doing an Instagram challenge for local nonprofits, they would choose one nonprofit in each city. You had to send in a 59 second video and SJR would select one. I did not like doing videos and I was going to pass since I had good tickets and was going to get her autograph either way. But my daughter challenged me to do the video and reminded me to think about the women that we are trying to help. So, we entered the contest. I am so glad I pushed past pride and the fear of rejection because we WON!! We got to be on stage with SJR and get to share about our cause. The whole venue was cheering. It was the best moment ever. They gave us a check too. Best night ever. Then in October 2021 SJR team reached out and said that SJR wanted to interview me on her Woman Evolve T.V. show so I was fortunate to have that opportunity as well. God is so good.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.anchorher.org
- Instagram: anchorherkc
- Facebook: Anchor Her