Our Impact: Stories

“Volunteers of America has been a light for me and I will pay that amazing gift forward as I volunteer to counsel the homeless.” Craig Swan Craig Swain had it all. He was living a successful white-collar life, thanks to a genius for all things computers and the technology they entailed. It was a gift that Craig turned into a career, along with his natural fit for the corporate world. Well-liked, polite, and a master at his craft, good-paying jobs were easy to find. He had a nice home, a family. It was perfect. But it all changed in one…

“My self-esteem is intact again.” It was 2014 and Courtney Johnson was in the Dallas County Jail. Based on the drug charges she heard in court she knew she would be here a while. She had no family. No money. No one to come see her. And she wasn’t even 30 years old. One day, she looked through the windows of her jail pod to another across the way where prisoners were doing yoga “I thought, ‘I want to do yoga.’ Someone told me it was a program pod for Resolana.” Courtney made the move and found more than a…

“I lost myself in my addiction; Resolana helped me find myself and be a better version of myself.” Chelsea Collier’s life as an only child started out just fine. She grew up in the Dallas area with two working parents. Her father worked long hours; she was especially close to her mother who spoiled her. But at 14, the first cracks in the foundation appeared when her parents divorced. She and her mother moved to Frisco and Chelsea found herself in the middle of nowhere. Then she met a family she fell in love with. “They would do anything for…

“It just takes somebody to believe in you.” For Xavier Roberts, the road to drug addiction was a long, slow downhill drive. The California native first set foot in Texas as a 32-year-old adult. Married, with children, she began so-called “recreational” drug use. “It was fun,” she said. “Drink a little here, snort a little cocaine there. I could go to work; I could take care of the children. I didn’t realize how progressive a disease addiction was.” It was an especially traumatic domestic abuse episode with her now ex-husband in 2012 that proved to be the event that caused…

“Resolana saved me. It showed me what might be possible.” Kathleen Callahan was introduced to alcohol before she was old enough to go to school. At family gatherings, it was funny to the unaware adults and older teenagers when she would come around and get sips from the various people around her. “My sister recalls this 4-year-old staggering down the hall,” Kathleen said. There was, however, nothing funny about the foundation it laid for a life spent fighting drug and alcohol addiction. Kathleen grew up in chaos, making it the norm for much of her life. An older brother was…

“Resolana taught me that I can’t control everything, but there is a resolution to everything.” Tara Browning “I never wanted to be a product of my environment,” says Tara Browning, a former participant in the Resolana trauma and addiction program run by Volunteers of America Texas at the Dallas County Jail. Tara is living her best, most stable life now. But a glance backward and she can clearly see the impact of her turbulent early life. It was as a child in Hammond, La., that the turbulence began. It included a great deal of insecurity, including a period of molestation…

“I enjoy my life for the first time in years; just a normal life of being clean and sober.” Karen Wilson “I was a disaster case,” Karen Wilson says of her former life as a drug addict. “If you saw me then and see me now, total and complete change.” Becoming a disaster case was, however, a dramatic change itself for the Louisiana woman who describes her teenage years in a “very good, upper-middle-class family” where the father was a supervisor in construction. At 15, Karen found herself facing peer pressure at school that tumbled out of control when public…

“The Resolana program will lead you where you need to go.” Debra Bea McCarthy Lifelong Dallas-area resident Debra Bea McCarthy stays busy with her work for Amazon, completing her fifth year with the company as a trainer for Amazon van drivers. She’s the mother of five adult children and she and her husband enjoy their home in Lancaster. And she sings in the Living Sound Choir at Inspiring Body of Christ Church. Her life today is, however, a complete turnaround from her youth. She had a turbulent early start with an abusive, alcoholic mother. After her parents divorced, Child Protective Services…

“If I didn’t choose Resolana, I would probably be dead.” Getting lost in the system is the last thing a prisoner in jail would want to experience. But for Danielle Keath, getting lost in the Dallas County Jail system meant getting found—and changed—through Resolana, the trauma and addiction treatment program run by Volunteers of America Texas. By all accounts, Danielle was responsible. She grew up in Phoenix and got a full-time job the day she turned 16. Weekends were party time with family, alcohol included. It wasn’t uncommon, she says, to have a beer with her mother over the conversation….

“We can’t keep what we have until we give it away. I feel most close to God when I’m helping someone.” Business owner Michelle Deskeere stays busy. Her landscaping and lawn maintenance business is thriving. She loves the work and gets to lend a helping hand to some of her older clientele. She has a family including her parents, a brother, and her pride and joy: three sons. One is a 22-year-old Arlington city firefighter. Another is 16 and has made incredible strides with his high-functioning autism. Her eight-year-old is in gifted and talented classes. Her life and family represent…