Decatur Cooperative Ministry Director Moves On after 12 Years of Service

After almost 12 years as executive director of the Decatur Cooperative Ministry, Beth Vann-Turnbull is saying goodbye. Scratch that. She’s saying “I love you. I’ll miss you, and I’ll see you again.”

She first started with DCM in 2001 after working with Fragile Kids Foundation.

 “I’ve just been a steward of the program and seen it grow over the past decade,” she told Decatur Patch. “Now, it’s time for someone with different skills to move DCM to a different level.”

She said she hopes that she was able to help build "a really strong foundation that the next director and staff can help DCM continue to grow, that I've been a good steward of all the resources we've gotten...that we weren't building on shifting sand, but on a solid rock."

She can rest easy knowing that the work she, her co-workers and the organization's volunteers do day in and day out matters.

“We don’t know where their journey will lead them when they leave us. We just have to have hope that we’ve planted a seed… I have to look to them and say this matters,” she said.

Although she knows that DCM simply can’t help every single person struggling with homelessness in Decatur, she knows that they make a difference by continuing to embrace their mission, established back when the organization began in 1969.

“We are going to work to establish relationships, equip them to move forward and become self-reliant… We’re able to help those people truly become stable over time.”

Looking back over her time with DCM, she remembered some of the people the organization helped get on their feet.

A family moved in on the first night the shelter opened in August 2001. After a while, the family moved to transitional housing before eventually moving out on their own, she said.

Years later during Christmas, the mother of the family called DCM. She wanted to thank the organization members and told them that she now had a master's degree, worked at Georgia Tech and had extra toys that she wanted to bring to the shelter for other children.

"I love that people move forward and offered their hand out to others. That's powerful. They're saying, 'Hey, I've been there. Look at what I've been able to accomplish.'"

What makes Vann-Turnbull a leader is her ability to recognize her gifts as well as the gifts and talents of others.

Constantly praising the talents and strength of the staff members and volunteers at DCM who help to make the nonprofit a success, she said she relied on them throughout her time as executive director.

For her, one of the biggest challenges in helping run the organization was overseeing the shelter facility.

“I wasn’t prepared,” she said, adding that she did not have knowledge of the maintenance that comes along with running a shelter where people live 365 days a year. “I had to rely on people with expertise… and amazing volunteers.”

Vann-Turnbull is headed back to Virginia with her husband, who has accepted a position at the University of Virginia. She will be working with low-income or underinsured individuals at the Virginia Dental Association Foundation, commuting from Charlottesville to work in Richmond.

She said the move will allow both she and her husband to be closer to their extended families.

"It's been an honor to be here. Since I've been here so long, I feel like I've grown up with DCM. It will definitely be emotional and bittersweet."