Mary House director enjoys sharing special moments with moms
Gail Pearson is the director general and director of Volunteers in the newly organized Mary House in Coeur d’Alene.
She graduated from Mount St. Mary’s in Emmitsburg, Md., in 2005. Trained as a youth minister, she wanted to give a year of service before beginning her career.
Attending a job fair sponsored by her college, she found an opportunity to serve with Maggie’s Place. Maggie’s Place is a home for expectant women living alone or on the street located in Phoenix. Pearson moved to Arizona to give a year of volunteer service, but now, some 2 1/2 years later, she is currently still working on giving her year of service.
Mary House, based on the principles founded in Maggie’s Place, is supported financially though private grants, private donations and fundraisers. Gail and her fellow staff workers live in Mary House full time. Donations of time and other essentials are provided through many different organizations and faiths for the creation of this private and supportive group of women.
Pearson is enjoying her move to Coeur d’Alene and finds it funny that many people think she is a nun, without a habit. But she assures me that she isn’t. Her likes run from reading classic literature to sitting in the sun at one of the downtown cafes. She has been taken by the heartfelt friendliness of the people of Coeur d’ Alene and the beauty of the area.
What is your hometown? Carlisle, Pa.
What town do you live in now? Coeur d’Alene
What job do you do? I am a full-time volunteer staff member for Maggie’s Place. We are a live-in community hospitality home for expectant women living alone or on the street. We attempt to provide a safe, family-like environment where women can fulfill their pregnancy in a dignified way that will help them grow in responsibility and independence so they can begin to build a better life with their child. I currently live at the Mary House, our newest home located in Coeur d’Alene, where I hold the position of director general and director of volunteers.
How long have you been doing this job? I have worked at Maggie’s Place since July 2005 and have lived in three of Maggie’s Place’s four homes for mothers.
What do you like least about this job? One of the hardest things about my job is becoming extremely close to so many women and babies and then having to watch them leave the home. It is always hard to say goodbye.
It is also hard to live and work in the same place. Living intensely in a community where you hold so many different roles (caretaker, friend, disciplinarian, etc.) can be emotionally, mentally and physically draining.
What do you like the most about this job? I love getting to know the moms like sisters and sharing in the special moments of their lives. I love watching the women who come to our home be able to heal what are sometimes very deep wounds and grow in love for themselves and their children. I love that my job challenges me to live out my Christianity so intensely every day.
Tell us a funny/unusual or sad story that happened on the job? One day, while I was living at our home in downtown Phoenix, two women came to our door. The older woman had been driving down the road and saw a fight between a man and a pregnant woman in the street. She called to the woman and invited her into her car, telling her she knew a place to take her to. She brought her to our door looking for resources.
We did not have any beds open at the time, so we spent about an hour calling every place in the Greater Phoenix area looking for a place for her to go. While this woman was waiting for some of the other homes to call her back, one of the moms living in our home, whose beautiful son was about two months old, offered her some lunch. The woman was a little shy, but thanked her and asked for a sandwich.
The woman started asking our mom about her baby. She told the pregnant woman that her son was the pride and joy of her life, sharing, in great detail, his great accomplishments in two months and how he was the “handsomest guy” she’d ever seen. She shared that when she got pregnant, she was in a bad situation and she wasn’t sure if she could be, or wanted to be, a mom. However, after ending a previous pregnancy, something inside her told her she had to try.
She came to Maggie’s Place scared and apprehensive, but through months of hard work and growth, she became more and more ready for her son’s birth. She said that after he was born, when she first looked at her son, she knew she would do whatever it took to give him the best life she could. She asked the pregnant woman if she wanted to hold him. She handed her son (who is one of the happiest babies I ever knew) to the woman, who started to cry. This woman never said what she was feeling or thinking, but you could tell something transformative was happening inside her. When it was time for the woman to go, we thanked her for coming to our house and she left with the older woman for a safe place. I hugged our mom and thanked her for the help she gave the woman. She said it was no big deal; she just wanted everyone to know what being a mother had done for her life. She had made so many mistakes, but life with her son was a chance to change her life, and she felt that everyone should take that chance. I’ve remembered this interaction because of the beautiful lesson this blessed mom taught me that day.
What is your dream job? As hokey as it sounds, working at Maggie’s Place is pretty close to being my dream job. I would like to do the same kind of work, however, maybe within my own home. It is amazing to work in an atmosphere of love and empowerment for women; especially for an organization that does these things by rejoicing in what true womanhood is and celebrates all the things women are capable of doing.
If your life were made into a movie, whom would you want to play you? I think I would hire Kate Winslet. She is a great actress, and I admire how she’s real, beautiful and talented and that she doesn’t let anybody change her.