November Doer of the Month: Liz Clasen-Kelly
We met on the greenway to walk and talk. It is the way Liz Clasen-Kelly works these days—like so many women--always needing to multitask.
In her personal life, Liz juggles a blended family of four children including a seven-year-old, Jonah, who has some unique health challenges. In her professional life, Liz must balance the largest homeless service agency in North Carolina, Roof Above, that currently has eight campuses serving 1200 people daily and two more campuses coming online on December 1st.
Solving homelessness has never been easy but is particularly challenging in a global pandemic where everything about the work must change. It is impossible to “shelter in place” when you have no shelter. Overnight, bagged lunch needed to be served by gloved and masked employees rather than a hot meal served by volunteers. And dozens were displaced as the men’s shelter rushed to comply with the mandatory “6-feet apart” protocol.
“This work has always felt like it was about life and death but now, it is so magnified on a daily basis,” Liz said. “I really feel the fragility so profoundly that we could be responsible for someone’s death.”
It is a heavy burden to carry every day and Liz admitted a moment at the beginning of the pandemic where she was feeling so responsible for so many lives. She was driving and thought of a song from her college days at Davidson College. There were few cars on the road, so Liz rolled down her windows, turned up her music on full blast, and began scream shouting the lyrics of the classic Indigo Girls song “Closer to Fine.”
She laughs remembering it, “I became hoarse singing those lyrics over and over. Maybe it wasn’t the words, just the music, that made me feel like I was releasing to God all those I was worried might die if I made a mistake.”
She thought a moment before adding, “We may not do this perfectly, but I am going to give it my all.”
Maybe that nineties hit song also reconnected Liz to the summer of 1997 when she first walked onto the campus of the Urban Ministry Center full of idealism. Liz spent that summer working alongside Dale Mullennix and the staff of “the Urb” as it used to be called.
“It was like falling in love,” Liz said. Although it has been 23 years, Liz lights up at the memory with her smile that is an invitation into her inner joy. “I thought I wanted to fall in love with a boy at college and instead, I fell in love with this work.”
Growing up in eastern Tennessee, Liz never quite felt like she fit in. Again, on the campus of Davidson, she was not sure where she belonged. “But at the Urban Ministry Center with that most unusual group of people from all walks of life,” Liz marvels, “I felt at home.”
Once again, Liz flashes her one-of-kind grin, “And that was before we were ever even providing housing!”
In her first job out of college, Liz came to work as the volunteer director, then moved up to the assistant director, and years later, Liz would have her first lead role as the executive director of the Men’s Shelter of Charlotte. When Dale Mullennix retired after 25 years of leading the UMC and it merged with the Shelter, Liz became the Executive Director of the newly formed Roof Above.
“I never expected to be an Executive Director and I am still wrestling with that,” she admitted. Liz grapples with where she is professionally meaning she is no longer able to be on the frontlines serving those in need. “I need to find ways to stay connected to the stories of the lives we change every day.”
Most days, it is the Roof Above team connecting with Neighbors and Liz tends to the demands of a soup kitchen, two emergency shelters, a dorm for working men, a housing program with more than 370 residents, and finishing a capital campaign for additional housing. It is an exhaustive list that entails over a hundred employees and decisions affecting all of Charlotte’s most fragile citizens. I ask her how and when she sleeps.
“Well, I have been exhausted many times this year, ” Liz admitted. “I have been reading Harry Potter every night with Jonah and there have been times I fell asleep with him around 8:30. Then, I would wake up about 3:00 am and start back to work.”
Despite a job that might cause burnout, Liz remains grounded in the belief she was called to this vocation and grateful for the opportunity to do truly meaningful work that continues to fill her soul.
“I am still regularly amazed when people who have nothing still display goodness and kindness,” she said in wonder. “Isn’t it amazing how someone who has lost everything can ask about how someone else is doing or tell me to have a blessed day?”
To learn more about Liz Clasen Kelly and Roof Above link here https://www.roofabove.org/roof-above-coming-soon-v2/
Want to Do Good? November is National Homeless Awareness month and on November 18th Liz will be leading True Blessings to raise funds to support Charlotte’s homeless. To participate in this virtual fundraising event and be inspired by Liz register here https://www.roofabove.org/true-blessings/