Mary Beth Frey, Samaritan Center

*Note: The following text is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

Bill Berthel
Welcome to Driving leadership. Today’s a crisp, beautiful, bright, cold day here in Syracuse, and we’re at the Samaritan Center. Come on in. We’re at the Samaritan Center, where nobody goes hungry. Their mission is all about dignity and respect. It’s an amazing space, but we’re going to have a conversation today with Mary Beth Frey, the Executive Director. She’s an energetic, positive, beautiful human being. And, well, we’re going to learn a lot about leadership from her today. And this space is amazing. It’s an old church, and, we’re just going to have a great time, great conversation. Come on, let’s go. So why here? This is such a beautiful location. But tell me the story, of the space, how you got to this beautiful space.

Mary Beth Frey
So Samaritan Center’s been around for, like, 42 years now. About 34 of those were in the basement of St. Paul’s Church down on Fayette and Montgomery. We were in the basement of that space. We were grateful to be, of course. I mean, it was beautiful. And it served us so, so well.

Bill Berthel
Of course.

Mary Beth Frey
But the need in the community just kept growing, and the space couldn’t accommodate the numbers we needed to serve. It was in the basement, so it wasn’t accessible. It wasn’t heated. It wasn’t. All that stuff made it very, very hard. so, the board really, as part of their strategic planning, thought about the mission, as always, how do we make sure we’re serving with respect and dignity? And it was getting difficult to do that there.

Bill Berthel
And those values of respect and dignity are central in your mission, fundamental to who we are.

Mary Beth Frey
I mean, every decision we make is kind of foundational to what’s the impact on the guest. So that’s a great thing to do. What does it mean for our guests? So that’s always the overlay. In board meetings, in every decision that we try to make.

Bill Berthel
This is perfect.

Mary Beth Frey
There’s this weird balance of efficiency and programming in people. And you can be really super-efficient and lose the heart of it. So, whenever there’s that conflict, the default is always people. Because who cares about the efficiency if the people lose somehow? So, in looking for a space that was fundamental as well. Like, how do we find a space that allows us to still be human? And when we were meeting to look at larger spaces, larger spaces can feel cold and can feel impersonal. So, what do we do to make sure that people still feel loved and cared for and hugged and accepted and seen.

Bill Berthel
Really feel like a guest.

Mary Beth Frey
You feel like a guest, right. They’re in a new home. When they walk into the space. So did a lot of hunting, searching. thought we’d found a place that we loved, but the variables didn’t cooperate. Is what we, like, kind of like.

Bill Berthel
To say, okay, that’s cool.

Mary Beth Frey
But as life would have it, right? As that space went away, this beautiful space became available. We had looked at it before, and it hadn’t been available. So, it was really weird. Within a month, this.

Bill Berthel
But it opened.

Mary Beth Frey
It opened up. We walked through and, an architect, who was the president of the board at the time, donated all his services.

Bill Berthel
Wow.

Mary Beth Frey
He walked in and said, I know how to set this up. I know what this should look like. And it was immediate. This is the place. And we all felt that way. That’s amazing, because there’s love in this place. There’s history and there’s service, and there’s an anchoring that just feels strong for people that are not feeling so strong.

Bill Berthel
Yeah. How did you get into this? Like, how is this you? Your walk of life? How is this your leadership?

Mary Beth Frey
I don’t know.

Bill Berthel
You don’t know? Actually, that’s a really good answer.

Mary Beth Frey
Things happen, right? Like, you find your way to different places, and they resonate with your heart. Right. And this place resonated with my heart. My, background was in mental health, so I did a lot of direct service with inpatient units and outpatient and group homes and all kinds of things. and I think for me, my transition points have always been, there’s something more I want to do, or there’s something I think I can add to this that in my capacity now, I can’t. So, what’s my next step in order to do that? When I was talking to people about, you know, coming to the Samaritan center, they were like, that’s backwards. You know, everybody does direct service. And then admin. I’m like, no, I don’t want. Like, I want.

Bill Berthel
You’re climbing the ladder in the wrong direction.

Mary Beth Frey
Where you going? But this allows me to do both. It allows me to do the administrative supervision, management stuff. But then I get to, every day be with people who needs somebody to see them, who needs someone to show up that cares about them even on their worst day. And when they make the worst decision, you’re still there to say all Right. That didn’t work. What are we going to do now? Yeah, we’re not leaving you. what do we do now? So that’s. We try to bring those. That accessibility here. But I think that. That to get back to your point about relationships, it’s so organic here. Like, the guests are helping people as much as we are, or as the volunteers are. we had a vet we were working with, trying to get them to connect in with services, trying to get them to see that there were things out there to support them. Didn’t want toa hear it from us? Didn’t want to hear it t until they had breakfast across from another vet. And that vet said, I’ll take you down to see my caseworker, and we’ll go together. He said, all right, all right, we’ll go. and that’s what did it. And this place just creates that place of safety. Right. That lets you ask hard questions and say hard things and try to connect.

Bill Berthel
What do you do for yourself and your leadership? Maybe I can ask in your life to stay energized.

Mary Beth Frey
There are definitely hard dates. Right. There are days when you go home and you’re like, I don’t know, like, this was just bad.

Bill Berthel
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mary Beth Frey
but then there’s the things you hold on to are the differences you make. And sometimes they’re huge, and sometimes they’re tiny. Like, this morning, there was a woman, struggles with some health stuff. We’ve connected a little bit. I’ve gotten her some coats, and she said, you know, I’m staying at the mission. I’ve done some housing applications. I’m starting to put some things together. But what keeps me going is being able to come here and to be in a space of love. And this gives me strength to do all the other things I have to do.

Bill Berthel
Wow.

Mary Beth Frey
And she gives me strength to do all the other things that I have to do.

Bill Berthel
So you get energized by these people, their experiences. You get energized by that?

Mary Beth Frey
Yeah.

Bill Berthel
What else?

Mary Beth Frey
I find therapy and nurturing in the outdoors. So, whenever I can be outside hiking or snowshoeing or, you know, up on.

Bill Berthel
Lake Ontario, energizing there for you.

Mary Beth Frey
Yeah, that’s healing to me, and that lets me kind of forget things.

Bill Berthel
that gets you physical, probably somewhat spiritual for you out there in the world, right?

Mary Beth Frey
Yeah.

Bill Berthel
Y.

Mary Beth Frey
That’s important to me.

Bill Berthel
Plugging into that. Yeah. What do you do to recommit?

Mary Beth Frey
I think I just see what’s the next missing thing that I can yeah. What’s the next thing? And there’s so many things, and will, I am certain, retire before all the things that need to be done will be done.

Bill Berthel
For sure, you’ll be part of the legacy, but you’ll leave it to someone else.

Mary Beth Frey
Yeah. There’s always been, you know, and then Covid happens. Right. So that eats up three years. And I. There’s all those.

Bill Berthel
Well, that was a different challenge set up for you.

Mary Beth Frey
But, you know, pivots are good. Right? Pivots help you think about, what can be different and maybe should be different. How do I adapt and adjust, and I love that sort of. How do I figure this out?

Bill Berthel
Okay.

Mary Beth Frey
and I think it forces you to change leadership in a lot of ways. Right. Like, we went from, like, I’m a very. I like to think I’m a very collaborative, you know, engaging, like, what do we think about? And Covid came and we didn’t have room for that. Yeah, it was like, we got to do this to protect people. We got to do that. And it was very directive.

Bill Berthel
There were forcing functions that.

Mary Beth Frey
Ah, yeah. And that was an interesting time to sort of navigate through because, the impact of that shift is really difficult, for everyone, whether it’s a volunteer or staff or, you know, your own self, trying to shift gears to make sure that you could still serve people, but keep people safe and manage the fear and anxiety that came with that whole period. I have a quote, and I change them all the time, but the one I’ve had on my desk for a very long time is, if it’s important to you, you find a way o. And that’s. That’s kind of it. You know what I mean? You just, you find a way and you figure it out.

Bill Berthel
Love it.

Mary Beth Frey
and you try to take care of people, the. The route. Right.

Bill Berthel
Awesome.

Mary Beth Frey
So, yeah, I just keep finding challenges.

Bill Berthel
So should we look around maybe a little bit? Can we walk around?

Mary Beth Frey
Sure.

Bill Berthel
Awesome. So, 180. You can. Seats 180 guests. You can serve. Okay. And two servings a day.

Mary Beth Frey
Yeah, we do breakfast Monday through Friday. An afternoon meal. 365 days a year.

Bill Berthel
Wow. Okay.

Mary Beth Frey
So about 120,000 meals a year we’re serving currently.

Bill Berthel
Wow. Okay.

Mary Beth Frey
Pretty incredible.

Bill Berthel
And you were saying there’s a little bit of, like, a seasonality through the month. It’s like, it’s a little slow at the beginning of the month and then very full at the end of the month.

Mary Beth Frey
Kicks up at the end. Yeah. So, in the beginning, people have more resources. They have their SNAP benefits or food stamps. They have other resources that have come in.

Bill Berthel
Sure.

Mary Beth Frey
And they’re kind of making their way through. Those resources typically last about two weeks.

Bill Berthel
Okay.

Mary Beth Frey
So the last two weeks of the month.

Bill Berthel
So the month is almost split in half.

Mary Beth Frey
Almost in half. They need to rely on.

Bill Berthel
See, more guests come through the door at the. Near the end of the month.

Mary Beth Frey
Yeah. So, you got to pay your rent, you got toa pay your utility. All those things come due at the end of the month. and food is where your budget, unfortunately, can wiggle a little bit. Right. If I don’t pay my heating bill, I freeze it up. If I don’t buy food, I’m hungry.

Bill Berthel
Sure.

Mary Beth Frey
But maybe I can rely on the Samaritan center. And then they come back, so it.

Bill Berthel
Might get me through.

Mary Beth Frey
Make it work.

Shango Osborne: Yeah.

Bill Berthel
That’s awesome.

Mary Beth Frey
So we bought it 10 years ago now.

Bill Berthel
Okay.

Mary Beth Frey
and that was important to us to have a stake in the community. Right. It’s not a rental thing. We own this piece of property and are legitimate pieces of this neighborhood.

Bill Berthel
Wow.

Mary Beth Frey
so we purchased us it. We ran a capital campaign. No debt. We got that off our buck. So, it went incredibly well. What was beautiful about it is as we were kind of making the CE sell to, you know, Bond Schoeneck & King, whoever, Key Bank. it wasn’t hard because those folks had already volunteered with us in the old space, and they said, this is a gift that we should give.

Bill Berthel
That’s beautiful.

Mary Beth Frey
The community needs this. So, it was really wonderful to run this capital campaign and get everybody on board. But it was neat, kind of to go back to that guest thing. We involved the guests as much as we could in that move as well. and in the old space, we were in the basement. We say, hey, we want you to. You know, we’re thinking about moving over to St. John the Evangelist. And what’s the basement like there? We were like, oh, no. No basement for you.

Bill Berthel
Wow.

Mary Beth Frey
So it was beautiful. And sat at the same time. Right. That they. All right, give us another basement. Wherever you got toa do it like. Nope. This is a community gift to. And you can feel the love and the history and all of that. But, yeah, this was where the communion.

Bill Berthel
Rail used to be. Okay.

Mary Beth Frey
And then the kitchen is where the altar used to be, so.

Bill Berthel
Oh. So, could you show us around?

Mary Beth Frey
Sure. I’ll show you into the kitchen.

Bill Berthel
Yeah. Thank you.

Mary Beth Frey
So the dish room, we serve on China plates and with real Silverware and ceramic mugs and all that stuff.

Bill Berthel
Don’t let me be in the way. Sorry.

Mary Beth Frey
Cause that’s a bit of dignity too.

Bill Berthel
Absolutely.

Mary Beth Frey
This is Styrofoam and plastic and all those kinds of things.

Bill Berthel
Absolutely.

Mary Beth Frey
but we were here two weeks before we realized John the Baptist was washing feet right up above where we wash pots and pans. There’s like all these neat parallels that happens.

Bill Berthel
There are. It’s like the space was actually made for this for really designed for it and made for it.

Mary Beth Frey
And the diocese was really glad to sell it to us because it was still mission work.

Bill Berthel
Of course.

Mary Beth Frey
You know what I mean? There were some neat ideas about a rock-climbing school and some other things.

Bill Berthel
That oh people had approached the height of the ceilings would do them for.

Mary Beth Frey
But they were really happy that it could stay still be an anchor for the neighborhood.

Bill Berthel
A place where people could absolutely do that mission work. Yeah.

Mary Beth Frey
This is Shango Osborne. So, he’s the guy that stands when it’s 100 degrees or when it’s minus 20.

Bill Berthel
Wow.

Mary Beth Frey
And knows everybody that comes through and make sure they feel loved.

Bill Berthel
So you’re that first smiling face they get to see. Keep it real man. Play keep real.

Shango Osborne
I try to make sure I get everybody. Make sure that they at least starting their mornings off good with a good how you do good morning.

Bill Berthel
Yeah.

Shango Osborne: For a lot of people, they need that.

Bill Berthel
Yeah.

Shango Osborne
Just to hear that part right there that sometimes that gets them in a.

Bill Berthel
Good place just to be seen. Right. Just to be greeted. Absolutely heard.

Shango Osborne
And then sometimes that gets into a whole other conversation with some there know always some of the typical of how people are when you get to greet them and makes it sure they get a nice warm coming into the building.

Bill Berthel
Beautiful.

Shango Osborne
It goes a long way. But yeah, I’ll be outside. I’DEAL with a lot of the elements of it. I want to say with greeting a lot of them, meeting a lot of them initially as they keep coming that you every day that just helps you build a relationship. Sometimes that you don’t even know that.

Bill Berthel
You have of course deal with people.

Shango Osborne
Now like she said now they’re looking for you to talk to you sometimes about certain things.

Mary Beth Frey
Yeah.

Shango Osborne
And a lot of times and I learned this myself a lot of times people don’t want a number of opinions just want to air.

Bill Berthel
That’s right.

Shango Osborne
Want somebody just to listen.

Bill Berthel
That’s right.

Shango Osborne
I mean honestly, that’s what I’m there for like I’m here to listen. And if I could give you some type of a different solution, maybe, you know, I’ll probably throw it out there, but you don’t have to take it.

Bill Berthel
But’s beautiful for the most part. Yeah.

Shango Osborne: Like that. That. I get that a lot too. I mean, I call myself a psychiatrist sometime.

Mary Beth Frey
Just.

Bill Berthel
Yeah.

Shango Osborne
I mean, I want to say I help a lot know you re everybody’s brother Seine. But yeah, everybody’s a brother, you know, at the same time too know. But it’s all about the bigger mission, the bigger picture of things.

Bill Berthel
Yeah.

Shango Osborne
Making sure everybody has a safe environment to do at making sure everybody gets a good meal to eat. To us twice a day coming into the wall for just knowing that we more here than just food. We real family. We want to treat you like family. We want to show you love. We want to show you want. We want to show you that we care about whatever your problems in and whatever your situation is. Whatever we can help you with. We’re going to have.

Bill Berthel
That’s beautiful. Awesome to meet you. Thank you. Thank you.

Shango Osborne: Thank you.

Mary Beth Frey
Fell. And sometimes it’s not even like having a solution. It’s just walking with somebody. Right.

Bill Berthel
Isn’t that leadership? I think so many leaders of sound negative here get it wrong. They think they have to have all the answers. They think they have to have all the solutions. It’s often just being there. Maybe it’s asking a few questions.

Bill Berthel
Giving someone the space to figure it out on their own is often even better. Right?

Mary Beth Frey
And if they figure it out on their own. ###n that awesome. Right.

Bill Berthel
And then they’re probably more bought into the solution. Right.

Mary Beth Frey
Their confidence is improved.

Bill Berthel
Everything. Right. That’s the real learning opportunity for them.

Mary Beth Frey
Yeah. And then I learned stuff, right?

Bill Berthel
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.

Mary Beth Frey
Everybody still grows and everybody’s still learning all along. We’re all works in progress.

Bill Berthel
Yeah, we are. That’s awesome.

Mary Beth Frey
So a couple of our volunteers and donors, the Manion’s, do you know them? Gwen and Patrick Manion. They commissioned these two canvases.

Bill Berthel
Wow.

Mary Beth Frey
And they actually just got hung yesterday.

Bill Berthel
Oh, that’s awesome. Oh, beautiful.

Mary Beth Frey
It’s just so pretty. But for him, right. It’s this idea of you come to give, but you get at the same time. Right. There’s this beautiful, you know, overused word synergy thing that happens that just brings people together and everybody’s better for it. Absolutely.

Bill Berthel
Mary Beth, thank you.

Mary Beth Frey
Thank you. I hope it was okay.

Bill Berthel
Better than okay. I love getting to know you more. And the organization. Truly. Thank you.