Today we’d like to introduce you to Jenny Macias.
Hi Jenny, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Eleven years ago, I became a mom to my beautiful daughter, Olivia, which changed my life. I quickly learned that being a mom is both the best job ever and the hardest job ever at that same time! I have always had a passion for helping and with my new appreciation for moms, I felt called to do work where I could provide support and encouragement to young moms. When I discovered an open position open at Hope House Colorado, I knew this was the kind of work that I would love! Hope House Colorado is a non-profit organization whose mission is to help parenting teen moms reach self-sufficiency. I was hired at Hope House 10 years ago to run their teen mom mentoring program. As I built relationships with the girls in my program, I fell in love with teen moms. Often the teen moms at Hope House come from backgrounds of poverty, abuse and trauma which makes parenting a child as a teen 10x more challenging. Even up against these challenges, they refuse to give up on their dreams and will do whatever it takes to be a role model to their child and ensure their needs are met. Teen moms are my heroes! It’s an honor to walk alongside them and cheer them on as they accomplish their goals.
Fast forward a couple of years, I am now a mother of 2 and was promoted to the Director of Programs at Hope House. While in this leadership role, I worked alongside our Founder & Executive Director to expand the programming we offer our teen moms and was a co-creator of our self-sufficiency rubric that allows us to measure our teen moms’ growth towards self-sufficiency. When I started working at Hope House in 2012, we were only serving about 50 teen moms a year and offered only a few programs with a handful of staff. During my tenure as the Director of Programs, we added an Early Learning Program, a College and Career program, and a Legal Advocacy program. Under my leadership, we also increased our recruiting efforts and our opportunities for our teen moms to build community with one another. Now we are serving more than 200 moms a year and are transforming the lives of two generations!
Last year I took on an exciting new role at Hope House as the Director of Partnerships. In this role, I get to take my knowledge and expertise of our teen parent programs and pass it onto other women who are passionate about supporting teen moms and want to open a Hope House in their city. In 2020, Hope House launched its first affiliate in Greeley, Colorado where for the first-time teen moms in Greeley have a place just for them! We are now in the process of launching a Hope House in Canon City, Colorado, Nashville, Tennessee and Little Rock, Arkansas. I love that we are expanding our reach and transforming the lives of teen moms in cities across the nation!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The challenging part of working with teen moms is that there is never enough housing. Many of our teen moms are couch surfing or living out of their car with their child or living in an unsafe or toxic environment. The other part of my role as the Director of Partnerships is to build partnerships with other organizations and businesses that will help remove self-sufficiency barriers for our teen moms. One of the biggest barriers to self-sufficiency is housing. Hope House has a residential program that can house up to 8 moms and their kids but we serve over 200 moms, so even though we have a house and have established a lot of good partnerships with housing organizations, it feels like it’s never enough.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Hope House provides free self-sufficiency programs to parenting teen moms in three key areas. The Empower Program provides opportunities for personal, educational and economic self-sufficiency for teen moms. This includes educational assistance through High School & GED and College & Career Programs. Additional supportive services include healthy relationships and personal growth classes, licensed counseling, legal advocacy and financial literacy. The Housing Support Program provides metro-Denver’s only Residential Program for teen moms and additional housing supports through various partnerships. The Early Learning & School Age Program focuses on literacy and social-emotional development; early intervention services; and school-age supports for the children; and provides a Parenting Program for teen moms. All programs are designed to transform the lives of two generations at Hope House.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
I am a Colorado Native! I was born in Denver and have always loved everything about Colorado. I left a couple of times to live in California for a bit and then in Missouri, but Colorado has always been home! I love the mountains in Colorado and the endless opportunities of outdoor adventures available to you here. In the wintertime, I am often in the mountains snowboarding with friends and family and in the summer, I am hiking or kayaking or attending concerts at Red Rocks.
One thing I wish I didn’t have to deal with in Denver is the traffic!
Pricing:
- All programs for Hope House teen moms are free!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.hopehousecolorado.org
