Be'Cause 🌻 The Joseph Center

Hola, Fierce Feminina,

Today, I want to share with you one of my most favorite people of all time. Mona Highline is my support, my mentor, and my Fierce Friend. Mona is the CEO of the Joseph Center, a nonprofit organization serving struggling families and the unhoused in Grand Junction, Colorado.

Mona was recently announced as the Nexstar 2023 National Remarkable Woman of the Year. She has received several awards for her innovative strategies including national recognition for the Golden Girls Program, a housing project for older adult women who find themselves unhoused based on unforeseen circumstances.

Mona’s dedication to the people around her and her community is unrivaled. She is a visionary leader who taught me to dream big and to never give up on your dreams. My hope is you enjoy her story as much as I have enjoyed her friendship.

The Joseph Center with Mona Highline

Last December, I had the opportunity to visit Mona at the Joseph Center for their building dedication. When I first entered the building, I was welcomed by two volunteers who were running the front desk.

To the left of me was a kitchen where staff joyfully cooked food in the open-concept kitchen. The room was designed in such a way that community members could sit family-style when eating their breakfast and lunch for the day. The integration of both staff and guests seemed seamless as they laughed and ate their food side by side.

It reminded me of the early days of the Joseph Center, back in 2016, when I sat on the floor with a young family in the kitchen eating pudding using the lids as spoons. Back then, the Joseph Center was only able to host a handful of families in its day shelter program.

Today, as of October 2023, the Joseph Center had over five hundred guests in their day shelter program and provides other services including parenting advocacy, integrated financial services for the disabled and housing.  The spirit of dignity and meeting people where they are still felt the same even though I was standing in an 8,535 sq ft building

I once asked Mona, why do you call your clients “guests”? Mona went on to give the following explanation, “dignity is everything.” “That is why we have a dining room table, and the staff eats the same food as the guests,” said Mona. She believes that the word “client” is way too sterile. Mona wants the guests to feel at home, relaxed, and welcomed. This is why clients at the Joseph Center are referred to as “guests.”  

In 2007, Mona was approached by Mesa County, Colorado to start an adult mentoring program. While she appreciated the need, she knew that was meant to do something else in the community. Mona had witnessed many other service gaps in the community like a growing homeless population.

Mona recounts meeting a homeless man in a grocery store parking lot who told her he had been living underneath a bridge. She recalled praying for the man and driving home unable to shake off the experience. Mona said she sat on her couch overwhelmed with emotion thinking that if the community had something like a Joseph Center, it could help a person like him.

At the time, the Joseph Center did not exist, but Mona shared her dream with anyone who would listen to her. She worked on all kinds of things in the community, but the idea of a Joseph Center was always there. Mona was frequently told that she had a phenomenal idea, but that it was too big for her. Friends and professional colleagues said she should go back to school. Mona told me, “I even doubted it myself; it was too big.”

I asked Mona what she thought changed things for her. She replied, “You.” I had written down her dream and given it structure by developing a nonprofit. It took someone believing with her in her dream and having people willing to walk alongside of her to bring her vision into existence.

Mona believes that seeing her dream written out on paper was the break in the dam holding her back. She said it was like she had been pregnant for 8 years and the day she saw her vision was written on paper she had given birth. It was her turning point.

Starting a nonprofit is, of course, just the beginning. Mona started the Joseph Center with three women, (Mona, Shawna Wilkins, and me), meeting in a coffee shop. Now she has 11 employees and 10 active volunteers and is managing three new administrative and housing facilities. Mona says, “It just keeps growing and I am still in awe.”

The Joseph Center manages nine programs, but Mona is most proud of the growth of her staff. Many of the Joseph Center’s staff are previous guests who would not otherwise be able to work in the field in any other organization.

The staff are a mix of human trafficking survivors, people who have had their parental rights terminated, and others who are in active recovery from drug and alcohol abuse. They are able to work, support themselves and their families, and discover skills they didn’t know they had.

The guests choose to be a part of the Joseph Center family and in doing so are also participating in their own healing.

Mona says, “The Joseph Center is for us all.”

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