The Crookston Area Chamber Ambassadors gathered this week to recognize and congratulate Jane Freeman, Executive Director for the Crookston Care & Share.
Jane Freeman, Executive Director for the Crookston Care & Share, has been in her new role since July of 2022. She has experience advocating for people with disabilities and the human resources field as of the latest. Jane then stepped into retirement for a short time enjoying the title of “grandma”.
Jane came out of retirement to work at Care and Share about 6 years ago. In her new role as Executive Director, her goal is to create a well-run organization before she hands the role off to someone else. She does not intend to be in this position for a long period of time but wants to ensure the organization is running at its best before she retires again. She shares that she can safely say that she’s held every position within the organization, so she is very knowledgeable about the operations.
Freeman explains, “each day here is different. Issues might be similar, but never the same. I have to be concerned about the residents, the food shelf, and emergency requests that come in. Those are the three types of service that we offer. I also have the facilities to worry about. This summer, we had a very full HOPE Center. As of recently, most of the families have found homes. Now I am focused on taking a second look at refreshing the HOPE Center. I also focus on the cash flow and what that looks like. Where are the grants coming from? What do they require? How do you get the grant dollars, and how do you spend the money? This has been a learning curve and how it works at Care & Share.”
Right now, the census averages between 25-30 people, and the average stay can be anywhere from a couple of days to several months. Part of the culture and approach is to keep them safe and warm.
When asked, what ways are you looking for the community to help and donate? Freeman responded, “we had a board meeting last week and right now we would like to have 1-2 people on the food shelf. It doesn’t need to be the same people all the time. Luckily our food shelf isn’t running low on food, which is the case for many other facilities alike. I’m proud to say that the residents have a choice in what types of food they want. Generous donations come in from Hugo’s and Walmart. It’s empowering to people when you have choices. It’s not wasteful, because they aren’t taking things they aren’t going to use.” The food shelf is open Monday & Wednesday from 1:00-4:00.
When asked what her dream or vision is for the next five years, Freeman responded with determination, “when people come here, we do work really hard to connect with them with the right resources, rather than having a lifestyle of being homeless. Our goal is to house people as this is not a place to live. I would like to see the HOPE Center facility upgraded, the computer system upgraded, and a good succession plan to be in place.”
It’s apparent that Freeman is very passionate about the Care & Share. She appreciates the community support and shares that 1/3 of the donations come from the community. “This really says a lot about our community. And it’s not just Crookston, it’s the tri-county area. People don’t want people to be homeless, and we are good people. When you come here, you are assigned a bed. You can come and go during the day, you can use the phone, bus rides are available. There is a lot of support that folks receive. We have a good success rate of getting people into homes. We have good landlords to work with, they defiantly take a risk.”
