Rewards great despite the hard road ahead
The tattoo is unfinished, the outlines of flowers and a hidden Hello Kitty face coiling around her left arm and shoulder like bruised-blue lace.
“I did it myself,” Lindsey Lepisto explains, “while I was on meth.”
Her boyfriend was in prison, and his tattoo gun was just sitting there, and she was just sitting there, and she was just high and bored. So she just went for it, oblivious to the pain and the permanency. But that was then. The crude tattoo remains, but the woman underneath has changed — permanently, she hopes.
“I was ready to restart,” the 25-year-old Roswell woman said. “So I came here.”
“Here” is a sprawling, well-appointed five-bedroom home in the quiet Siesta Hills neighborhood where women exiting prison, jail or drug rehab learn how to restart their lives in a cleaner, more independent and
accountable way. Precious Gifts, the name of the nonprofit that manages the home, is a structured and warmly connective program run for women by women.
“We have a program that is breaking a cycle of addiction, incarceration, homelessness, separation from family, inability to get a job, those things that keep so many women down,” executive director Laura Brown said. “We’re a small program, but we feel we are making a big difference.”
Like many transitional living houses, Precious Gifts runs on a shoestring budget and the commitment of its small staff — many who are volunteers, some who have gone through the program, all who come from their own lives of addiction and recovery.
“If you’re going to support and guide these ladies who are new to their recovery, you better have been there yourself,” said Jeri Hollan, the program’s education and career coach.
Precious Gifts staff visit the women’s prison and jails to talk about the program with inmates preparing to return to life on the outside who need support and a place to land.
“Even those who have a great desire to change don’t have the tools to do that,” Brown said. “They don’t understand how to change, don’t know the path to walk. They need to be coached and mentored by others who have walked the path. We provide a structured alcohol-free and drug-free living environment that helps these women develop financial independence, sobriety and community.”
Hollan, who interviews and screens applicants, said the program is very selective. For every three who apply, only one is chosen to fill one of the home’s eight beds.
“We really look for the women we think are serious about succeeding in the program,” Hollan said.
Participants must commit to a minimum stay of 90 days and pay the first two weeks of the weekly $125 fee. They must agree to the house rules, which include working at a job or enrolling in school, following a 12-step program such as Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous, and attending at least three weekly meetings.
The must also meet weekly with Hollan and a therapist, adhere to a curfew, attend a weekly house meeting, stay clean and sober, and stay away from men.
“Men can be an issue, and one of the things we’ve seen is very often women who are incarcerated have followed their men into crime,” Brown said. “We want these women to focus on themselves. We want them to learn how to stand on their own two feet.”
The program has a 100-percent success rate for those who complete the program as measured in secure employment, education, family reunification, sobriety skills and a recidivism rate reduced by 30 percent over the state average.
It’s not easy, though. Of the 170 women who have started the program since it began eight years ago, about 90 have graduated.
Lepisto is two weeks away from graduation. She credits Precious Gifts with helping her find a better path and herself.
“I married young, had a kid young,” she said. “I never found out who I was. I wanted to find out who I am.”
She was 16 when she had her first child and a husband. Nine years later, she had two children, no husband, an abusive relationship and meth.
“Once I did it, it was downhill,” she said. “And it kept going downhill, because I started associating with people doing meth.”
In 2013, she was charged with 34 counts of fraud and forgery. After several failed attempts at court-ordered drug treatment and probation violations, she was sent in May to serve out the rest of her sentence in the Chaves County Detention Center. That’s where she learned about Precious Gifts.
She arrived at the home in Siesta Hills in July.
“I had nothing when I got here,” Lepisto said. “But within an hour or two of being here, it felt like home.”
Lepisto got a job as a waitress, stayed clean, worked her program, made enough money to buy an old car, renewed her relationship with her family and her children, and forged friendships.
She made it through, she said, because of a sisterhood of strength.
“Living with all these women you develop a close bond. They are like family now,” she said. “I’m way happier now. I laugh like a little kid. It’s probably the hardest thing I have ever done, but it’s so rewarding. It’s a lifelong thing I’ve learned here. I know who I am.”
After she graduates Oct. 6, Lepisto plans to move back to Roswell to be with her children. Someday, she plans to have the tattoo she started finished by a professional, the flowers filled out in color. They will be just beautiful.