ADVOCATES OF HANNAH’S HOUSE OF GRACE — A luncheon and style show to benefit Hannah’s House of Grace will be held from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. April 8 at First Westminster Presbyterian Church, 235 N. Fourth St., Steubenville, an effort involving, seated, from left, Pastor Toni Hubbard, president; and volunteer Latisha Murray; and standing, volunteers Candy Meiler, Sondra Johnson and Kelly Jeffers, assistant secretary. Tickets are $12 in advance and at the door. Hannah’s House of Grace is a nonprofit 501 (c) (3) organization that provides supportive transitional housing and program resources to recently incarcerated adult homeless women. -- Janice Kiaski

STEUBENVILLE — Hannah’s House of Grace Inc. is moving forward with a vision to provide supportive transitional housing and program resources to recently incarcerated homeless women.

And it’s looking to the community for some support.

Attending a fundraiser luncheon and style show is one way to offer that, according to volunteers involved in the nonprofit 501 (c) (3) organization that wants to help residents of Hannah’s House make the transition from a lifestyle of chronic substance abuse to a lifestyle of sobriety, self-sufficiency and productivity.

The event will be held from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. April 8 at First Westminster Presbyterian Church, 235 N. Fourth St., Steubenville, and include a luncheon; style show; vendors featuring makeup, purses and Gold Canyon candles; a silent auction; information about the organization; and a special tribute to families who have lost loved ones — male and female — to drug overdose.

Tickets are $12, preferably obtained in advance but also available the day of the fundraiser, according to longtime Pastor Toni Hubbard, the organization’s president.

Hubbard said Hannah’s House of Grace officially became a nonprofit in April 2015 but its roots stretch deeper as the seed for it was planted two years ago when she and her daughter, Kimberly Bowie, also a minister and the organization’s vice president, began discussing the need for such an outreach.

“God gave us this vision. We always had a burning to help women because of our family, what we have seen, our family going through the struggle,” said Hubbard, who has ministered to women on the street for several decades.

“(Women) in drug addiction, prostituting, (being) in and out of jail — these type of women I have a burning desire to help, because I know that God has a seed in each one of us, and it just needs to be rebirthed,” Hubbard said, explaining the women released from jail often have no options but to return to the streets and drug abuse.

“We talked about it and said we have to do something about it,” Hubbard said, noting other board members include Pastor J.J. Chmielorski; Se’Yauna Delatte, secretary; Kelly Jeffers, assistant secretary; and volunteers Latisha Murray, Sondra Johnson, Candy Meiler, Carla Davis and Roberta Robinson.

The mission of Hannah’s House of Grace Inc., according to promotional material, is to help women who are re-entering the community from incarceration and/or chronic substance abuse achieve lifelong self-sufficiency, renewed positive relationships, sobriety, healthy lifestyles and renewed attitudes through Christian-based individual counseling; educational programs on budgeting, saving household and personal income; support obtaining a GED or higher educational goals; grief recovery seminars; and life discipline seminars.

With its nonprofit status obtained, “We began to look for a place to go, and we couldn’t find a place, but we kept believing that God was opening up doors for us,” Hubbard said.

The doors opened in many ways, according to Hubbard, as the need for such a program was reaffirmed by different local agencies such as Coleman Professional Services and Jefferson County Common Pleas Judge Michelle Miller.

Women who want help through the program “would come directly out of the jail system,” Hubbard said. “They will not hit the street at all because when the jail lets them go, it’s 5:45 in the morning, and there is no one there to receive them, so they go back in their familiar atmosphere. With our program, the judge recommends them, who is to come, and once she recommends them, then we talk to Coleman (Professional Services), and they do an evaluation on them. The women have to volunteer to come, they will not be forced to come, but once she makes up her mind to go in the program for a year, in that year she goes through all the educational program such as getting a GED and learning some survival skills, learning how to do a job interview, and in and out of classes to keep her stable,” Hubbard said.

Hannah’s House now has an actual physical location at 160 Wildon Ave., Steubenville, that is hoped to be operational for the program by June, according to Hubbard, who said proceeds from the luncheon will go toward bills related to it. Hubbard said the house was a rental property of hers she felt led by the Lord to donate. Some furniture and carpeting have been donated, and a new furnace has been installed.

“We’ll hopefully have that house up and running by June,” she said.

Donations of money and other items are appreciated, including personal hygiene items.

Volunteers involved with Hannah’s House agree the need for it is “great.”

Hubbard said her daughter Donna Young struggled with addiction for years but has since turned her life around.

“My daughter she had her struggle for 25 years. It was a deep, deep struggle, and through all of that time, being a mom, I never stopped praying for her. I knew God was going to deliver her,” Hubbard said. “We all have our personal relationships and see what drugs have done but knowing that woman has good in her, she has a seed in her, all we want to do to pull it out,” she continued.

“We want these women to know we understand the struggle. I have been through it,” said volunteer Latisha Murray of her former lifestyle of drug abuse involving heroin and crack cocaine. “You need somebody that’s going to be able to understand what the struggle is. You can’t have somebody who hasn’t been there, hasn’t been on the street or understand addiction and the lifestyles,” Murray said.

“My mind wanted to quit, but my body needed it so bad, and I knew it was wrong, but it was an addiction, so that’s why this is so important to have us here to help somebody else,” said an emotional Murray.

“What I found is there is a gap for these women between when they become incarcerated and that time when they are released,” noted Kelly Jeffers, the organization’s assistant secretary. “There’s no family to get them. There’s no one there waiting, so many of these women are going through the court system, through the jail and right back out onto the street. There’s no one there but the streets waiting for them,” Jeffers said, “Many times the ones who do have family, that family is dysfunctional or also in addiction, so there is that need for that stability that Hannah’s House is offering, and I just thought, wow, what a tremendous need that’s never been filled, so I think there’s so much potential here, so much potential,” Jeffers observed.

Hubbard explained the significance of the name Hannah being part of the organization.

“Hannah is a woman in the Bible, and her story is that her husband had two wives, and Hannah was the first wife and couldn’t produce a child while the second wife did.

“Hannah felt so useless, like an outcast, and even though her husband loved her more, Hannah didn’t love herself. She prayed and prayed, and God blessed her with Samuel, the seed of David who is the lineage of Jesus Christ.

“With this here,” Hubbard said, referring to would-be Hannah’s House participants, “these women think they are dead as far as producing anything else in their life, but we don’t know what seed has been planted. It might be the first woman president, it might be the first woman greatest evangelist, it might be the first woman CEO of her own company coming through Hannah’s House, we don’t know, but our job is to get these women if they are willing to go through the program. God already done planted the seed, so now we just have to water it and nourish it,” Hubbard said with conviction.

“This ministry takes anointing,” Hubbard said. “This ministry’s a hard ministry to do — it is anointing of God, not of ourselves. It’s God’s hand guiding us,” Hubbard said.

For tickets to the luncheon, contact Hubbard at (740) 424-1401; Latisha Murray, (740) 219-3806; Kelly Jeffers, (304) 794-9013; or Candy Meiler at (740) 219-3840.

(Kiaski can be contacted at jkiaski@heraldstaronline.com.)