With its commercial kitchen, the new Hope Respite Care facility on the Village of Hope campus will need a Kitchen Manager. Jolene, a graduate of our Hope for Women program, has been hired to fill this position. Her experience working as the assistant to the Navigation Center Kitchen Manager has proved that she will be a valuable asset.

My name is Jolene. Within two years of being released after serving a fifteen-year sentence at Chowchilla’s Women’s Facility, I was arrested and spent two years at Sandy Mush Correctional Facility. I was looking at a life sentence and I was at my rock bottom once again. I have never really believed in any kind of faith or God. Every week the Merced County Jail Ministry would come into the jail, Ms. Gina would always make time to come talk to me. She began to pray with me and over me, she also started talking to me about the Merced Rescue Mission and their Hope for Women program. I applied and decided that I needed to believe in something bigger than me. I made the decision to believe in God and have faith that God would carry me through this time. I was accepted into the Hope for Women program and have since graduated from the program. I have a full-time job with the Merced Rescue Mission serving at the Navigation Center. I am clean and sober and living my best life today. I would not be where I am today if it wasn’t for God, Ms. Gina coming in with the Jail Ministry and the Merced Rescue Mission.