IN FROM THE COLD

A recovered substance abuser brings warmth, help, and hope to a devastated community.

 

Dotti Holman carried a steaming cup of coffee from the kitchen to the older gentlemen hunched over a bowl of oatmeal, his eyes down, his yellow ball cap covering his head. He sat alone. Quietly, peacefully. The first person of the day looking for a warm place and a free meal inside Cartwright Community Resource Center.

 

All morning, the community volunteers had been preparing a Christmas dinner for anyone who walks through the door. Dotti had been whisking up the glaze for the hams and turkeys her husband smoked the night before. They weren’t done until she added “a little kick.”

 

In the background, “Let It Snow” played and later tonight it just might, a daunting forecast for the many locals sleeping in tents, cardboard boxes, and makeshift lean-tos. The coffee, now done, was fierce and ready for careful sipping. She placed the cup in front of her guest, his response one of humble thanks.

 

“This coffee is so hot it’s going to knock your socks off,” she calls out in her cheerful, jovial way.

She pauses, eyeing the older man’s feet. It’s barely 40-degrees outside. It’ll only warm a few more degrees that day before plummeting back down to below freezing. She knows this. She knows him. And she knows he walked there.

 

“Wait,” she isn’t shy about calling out the needs because it’s the only way to meet them, “you’re not wearing any socks.” And that’s how the day begins. He explains he doesn’t have any. Not a single pair. But that’s going to change today. Dotti makes sure of it.

 

“Since you’re my Christmas buddy, you don’t mind if I buy you some socks, do you?”

 

He agrees and is given an entire shaving kit, socks included, with toothpaste and a toothbrush, soap and razors, and chapstick. What Dotti Holman is doing in Cartwright, Oklahoma is nothing short of a miracle. But she doesn’t see it that way. She says it’s nothing more than “not quitting.”

 

 

DOTTI'S STORY

Dotti has a cherubim smile full of gaiety, sass, and just the right pinch of southern momma. She offers warm bear hugs before squeezing some sense back into you. She goes about the responsibilities of serving her community with joy, which can come out as a joke, a hearty laugh, or busting a groove to the next song on the radio. What she does, she does because it’s her “calling.” She’s uniquely gifted to help the homeless and those who struggle with substance use because she once was one.

 

“It was a terrible three and a half years,” she says about her time as an addict, while sitting in the warm community center. “I understand, and I know there is hope for the people here.”

 

Dotti grew up poor in a family marred by neglect. She grew up knowing hunger, need, and the ache of being unloved. By age 14, she was pregnant, and married the father, Dennis, who shared a similar background. What could have been the continuation of generational poverty became the catalyst for generational change. Together, they rewrote their story.

 

No more abuse. No more neglect. Their home would be one of a strong family unit that nurtured their children. He went to work. She stayed home and became the ideal homemaker–homemade baby food, cloth diapers, hugs and kisses and laughter. Eventually, they welcomed two more children and grew into a strong family of five.

 

“My children would tell you today that they had a beautiful childhood,” she says, with a hint of, not pride, but comfort. She gave them everything she didn’t get. Then, in one brief moment, that idyllic life ended.

 

On his way home one evening from work, her husband, Dennis, died in a car accident, until the paramedics brought him back. Then he died again on the operating table. Again, the medical staff brought him back. He would live, but he would never again be the same. Doctors prescribed every kind of medication to help him. What did that mean for Dennis? It meant unlimited oxycodone, hydrocodone with acetaminophen, and sleeping pills.

 

“He lost who he was, and he was a wonderful person.”

 

Six months later, she would walk down their stairs into the living room and find Dennis, age 38, gone. Died in his sleep. This time, he wasn’t coming back.

 

 

A FUTURE HOPE

Dotti never expected to lose her husband so suddenly, and she never expected what came next. A man addicted to meth. A con artist with one solution for her grief.

 

“I didn’t know about meth,” she said. “He did.”

 

Soon, she would, too. It would consume her. It would separate her from her children and extended family. Separate her from her health, her home, and her hope. Yet, through this dark journey, the seeds of her future “purpose” would be planted.

 

“Some of the best people I met were at the dope house. They were broken, same as me…They were good people with kind hearts.” There she would share her story, and they would share theirs. All the good. All the bad. She saw them, and they saw her.

 

Dotti knew finding a way free of her addiction wouldn’t be easy. The statistics were against her.

“Eighty-seven percent never get free from that. Out of those, a very large percentage will go back to it, won’t stay completely off it,” she recites the stats for meth addicts from heart. “I never thought I could be free.”

 

That didn’t mean she wasn’t going to try. Dotti called her sister who, along with everyone else in her family, had excommunicated her, and asked for one more chance. She needed a place to live and her sister, who lived in California, had a house under construction in Cartwright. Her sister agreed. Even though drugs are plentiful and in abundance in Cartwright, in Cartwright is where Dotti got clean.

 

 

SOWING INTO OTHERS

Once free of her addiction, instead of turning her back, moving on, and refusing not to see the people in Cartwright still struggling with substance abuse and homelessness, Dotti made the decision to look. To really look. To see the vacant eyes hungry for food, for compassion, for recognition. To see people society forgets. She stopped only looking and decided to act.

 

“This area is a food desert. There’s no place to go. You have to travel more than ten miles to get to Walmart in Texas or you have to go to Durant. The only other option is a little convenience store we call ‘The Lucky Stop.’”

 

For the people in Cartwright, that means exorbitant prices for what food they can find and few to no healthy options. So, Dotti started bringing quality food, like fruits and vegetables and whole grain bread, in from the Metroplex where she’d collect it from multiple nonprofits.

 

“I’d just give it out on Fridays at 3pm in a parking lot off the main road. I had a free food sign; I’d just hold that up. People thought I was crazy. It had a big red arrow on it. I had a jingle and everything, ‘Free food, you know you want some.’ It went on and on. ‘Free food, it’s so wholesome,’” she sang it out.

She often had 1,000 pounds to give out and, by the end of Friday, it was gone. Trying to help people didn’t come without opposition, though. There were some who simply wanted her to ignore the problems, ignore the people, and leave things alone. She did none of those things.

 

She didn’t quit, which she says is the secret to how she keeps going. She simply refuses to quit. Eventually, she says, the obstacles are overcome and the extra help comes. That’s how the actual community center building even happened. A donor, seeing her efforts, purchased a building and simply texted her, “What are you going to do with it?”

 

 

BUILDING A BEACON OF HOPE

Dotti sits in that building now with Christmas festivities underway. People are streaming in from the cold, there are gifts ready to pass out, bingo cards and games set up. Volunteers from the community are greeting and serving, all the activities supporting the name on the outside, Cartwright Community Resource Center.

 

This is where the needy come and find help they never imagined possible. This is where they find community, resources, and food, but also so much more. What Dotti started alone, now has the support of others in the community like Lighthouse Behavioral Wellness Centers.

 

“Lighthouse is here counseling with people. They have an urgent care center. They work with them and get them into rehabilitation programs and get to the root of what that is, what’s causing that. You see that it’s multigenerational,” says Dotti, who understands personally the impact of generational abuse, addiction, and poverty.

 

Every Monday and Friday, counselors from Lighthouse are at the center helping residents find the path to a healthier, happier, more independent and secure future.

 

“I came down here and actually just fell in love with the people,” says Hailey Manners, a Lighthouse Counselor out of Durant, who is providing necessary help and guidance to the people of Cartwright.

 

“They’re real. And the problems they go through are real. They have big hearts, just got a bad hand in life, really.”

 

She’s referring to people like Brandy Fuller, a Lighthouse client, who moved to Cartwright from Denison with her mother after her stepfather died and they lost their home.

 

“Without this place, where would anybody turn to that doesn’t have anybody? People who don’t have family, where do they go for help? Without this place, they would have nowhere to go because there’s no other place in Cartwright,” says Fuller, who has a passionate intensity behind her black-lined eyes. “It benefits anyone who doesn’t have someone or is homeless or needs medical attention or psychological attention.”

 

Initially, Fuller and her mother came to stay with a friend of a friend. Eventually, they both ended up homeless anyway.

 

“A lot of people are living in tents. Me, I’m one of them. I just happen to take it better than some.”

 

“You can get mental health assistance here. You can get food here. You can get a shower. You can get anything you need, really. All you have to do is ask. And, sometimes, you don’t even have to ask,” says Fuller.

 

In Denison, she mowed lawns for income, gaining a customer base of 37 different locations. In Cartwright, she hopes to build that business again. And, with the help of Dotti and Lighthouse, she’s on her way.

 

“The thing they do here is just a blessing. I love the people here with all my heart. I don’t know what I’d do without them.” 

 

 

FROM HOPELESS TO HOPEFUL

Through her work as a Lighthouse counselor, Manners has witnessed the shift in perspectives from those in Cartwright and how they view counseling.

 

“When we first started coming down here, they were scared of us. Now, we’re starting to see people coming out of their shells and ask us about our services. It’s been really cool to see that over the last year.”

 

What started as simply providing food for the people in Cartwright has now grown into a multi-service center that, through Lighthouse, offers therapy, case management, care coordination, and med management. Right there in Cartwright, they can go through the intake process, be assessed, and get their medications delivered. Counselors have also helped residents obtain birth certificates so they can get IDs and Social Security cards, as well as set up eye doctor and dental appointments.

“I love to serve people, love to help people. Being able to do that here…it’s just really fulfilling for me,” says Manners.

 

When they can get the mental health assistance they need, the residents are able to utilize other services offered at the center through partnerships, like enrolling in GED classes. Seniors can obtain viable work, or individuals can simply come to the center for their weekday hot meals, to attend a Bible study, take a tai chi class, play bingo, get drug tested, or find what they need from the food pantry. The Oklahoma Regional Food Bank provides 5,000 to 6,000 pounds of food every fourth Wednesday of the month.

 

What is happening inside this center located in this humble community is the restoration of value. It comes through some of the simplest acts, like delivering a blanket.

 

“Today, when I helped (Dotti) pass out the blankets and stuff, that’s just a big, BIG help to the community,” says Fuller, who rode along during one of Dotti’s house call days where she delivers necessities to people who can’t get to the center. “The man we delivered blankets to I’ve never once seen smile. When I took that box of stuff to him, he just had a smile from ear to ear. Made me want to cry. It gives him hope. It’s something to look forward to other than another day of misery.”