Fishburn has a heart for volunteer work

Kellie Fishburn sold her advertising agency in 2014 and retired. She has a heart for volunteer work and got involved with Reason Enough To Act in 2015, helping raise money for their annual fundraiser dinner. She heard about the organization through her church.

Reason Enough To Act is a faith-based pregnancy and family resource center that offers those dealing with pregnancy and parenting challenges the tools, resources, coaching and support they need to succeed.

RETA offers everything from nonjudgmental pregnancy support for both wanted and unwanted pregnancies to abortion recovery support.

Fishburn was living in Nappanee at the time, so she was in close enough proximity to Elkhart to actively volunteer with the resource center. When she started with RETA, they typically would have about 250 people attend their annual fundraiser dinner. At that time, the dinner was raising about $50,000.

Fishburn and her husband, Brad, moved to Syracuse in 2020, which made the commute to Elkhart more challenging. By 2020, close to 250 people were regularly attending the fundraiser dinner, raising close to $200,000. She discontinued her volunteer work at RETA in 2020.

In 2021, RETA had retired neurosurgeon and politician Ben Carson speak at the dinner event. This year, former professional football and baseball player Tim Tebow spoke at the dinner. In 2023, the dinner was attended by nearly 1,000 people and raised nearly $500,000 for the organization.

After moving to Syracuse, Fishburn started volunteering with Rose Garden Recovery Community and was recently installed as a board member.

“I was very impressed with the organization and wanted to help them out with their fundraiser,” she said.

The organization’s vision is “to see women remain in recovery as they successfully reunite with family, return to their community, and establish healthy relationships.”

Rose Garden provides women fighting addiction with a safe place to work on their recovery.

Women enter a faith-based program with rules and stipulations they must follow for a nine-month period. The goal is to gradually help these women recover from their trauma and addictions while giving them tools and teaching them life skills to succeed when they have completed the program.

Once they’ve completed the initial nine-month program, if they feel they’re not quite ready to be on their own they can live in a graduate house, which continues to provide support for up to one year.

Fishburn stated, “They have to sign a contract and have rules to follow. The first couple weeks they don’t work and don’t have their cell phones. They cannot have their kids with them. That’s very tough for women.”

She mentioned that they do have visitation hours on Sundays.

Eventually, the women are required to get a job. People at the recovery home help them find employment. Once employed, volunteers transport them to and from their job. They do pay rent money back to Rose Garden.

Fishburn said, “Women in recovery are required to participate in several different programs, whether that’s a program like Alcoholics Anonymous or otherwise. They are also required to participate in a Bible study. They don’t have to believe in Jesus, but they need to participate.”

She mentioned the program has different levels where women gain more responsibility as they continue to progress in their recovery journey.

“In that nine-month period they work to gain more responsibility to prove themselves.

They teach the women different hobbies. They learn how to deal with life without drugs. People come in and teach them cooking and sewing.”

She said some of the judges in Elkhart and Kosciusko counties will recommend Rose Garden to drug offenders.

“I’m amazed they run on such a tight budget. It’s a nonprofit organization. The only way they make it is through donations. It’s a big deal to raise awareness of what they do for these women to drum up support. I was really impressed with how efficient they are at using their funds,” said Fishburn.

“I think especially for a woman, hearing their stories, they get involved with drugs and alcohol and some lose their children. Nobody wants to live like this. The majority of them have kids. I just really have a heart for these women,” she said.

Fishburn will be helping with Rose Garden’s annual fundraiser.

“I’m just starting to meet and talk with people about what we’re going to do this year,” she said.