Page 27 - BusinessWest February 17, 2025

fresh clothes and food.
“Our job with the pop-up shelter is not to
rehabilitate anyone,” Adamczyk explained. “A lot
of them are coming in and using; they will actively detox with us through the evening, but they’d rather be sick than be out in the cold.
“We had a mother and her autistic son stay with us this last stretch of open nights,” she went on. “They came to us in the morning and said, ‘we want to thank you for opening because we would have died in our tent last night, it was so cold; I’m afraid we wouldn’t have woken up.’
As for the movies, they’re part of larger efforts to provide those who need the shelter “a moment of feeling normal; it doesn’t feel like they’re not seen,” she explained.
“I’ve never myself experienced that, but I can
only imagine that walking through a day and
feeling as if no one sees you — and if they do, it’s a negative connotation — would be pretty heavy,” she continued. “So we try to be as loving and positive as we can those shelter nights.”
Meanwhile, operation and staffing of this shelter
speaks to the way Adamczyk has improved morale
at PMN and created a culture of not only giving back, but going perhaps above and beyond. Indeed, there isn’t a separate staff for the shelter, she explained, adding that regular staff who volunteer to work there do so knowing they go straight from that detail to their regular job.
“I have many staff that are going to work overnight and still have their day job in the morning,” she said. “They are giving of their time, energy, and resources to meet the needs of these people. They say they do it because I do it.”
Bottom Line
Adamczyk likes to say she’s a Protestant living in a Catholic world.
Jennie Adamczyk with staff members, from left: Michael Clark, facilities manager; Stephanie Trombley, marketing coordinator; and Axel Fontanez, housing manager.
Photo by Bob Zemba, Simple Truth Imaging
She recalled that, when she reminded of Sr. Caritas of this, she jokingly responded, “well, everyone is flawed in some way.”
She certainly doesn’t consider it a flaw that, on occasion, she may not follow all the rules or procedures when adding a program or a service. Like Sr. Margaret, when Adamczyk sees a need, she tries to meet it.
That makes her the right manager for PMN — and also a Difference Maker. BW
“They came to us in the morning and said, ‘we want to thank you for opening because we would have died in our tent last night, it was so cold; I’m afraid we wouldn’t ha”ve woken up.’
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