The work can be heavy — but there’s a lot to celebrate.
Kedrick Nettleton, Community Engagement Manager
Tell me if you’ve heard this before: It's a busy season here at The Spring.
We don’t mean to sound like a broken record, but it’s true. Over the last few years, our team and our ministry have undergone a dramatic expansion, and we’ve been excited to share that news with as many people as possible. We launched our transitional living program last summer, moved administrative staff out of our shelter facility, and began a renovation campaign on the building that will, someday soon, become our headquarters. We also purchased a facility to serve as the first iteration of a program supporting juvenile survivors of human trafficking, though the launch of that program remains far in the future.
The point is, it’s been a lot. And all that change has had our team reflecting on what these last few years have really meant. What have we learned? What in our approach have we needed to shift? And what — to put this conversation into more seasonally appropriate terms — are we thankful for?
The work we do is often heavy. We’re walking hand-in-hand with people navigating the darkest times of their lives. But it’s precisely because of that proximity that we have the opportunity to witness incredible moments – families restored, relationships healed, justice served, and people finding true fulfillment in Jesus. What a gift!
So, to celebrate the start of the Thanksgiving season, we thought it would be fun to point out a few things going well in the fight to create communities free from abuse and trafficking. Because there is hope all around us, and that hope deserves just as much room to breathe as anything else we write about.
This year’s DVFRB Report showed lots of progress.
We wrote about this year’s report in January, and it’s worth reading the whole thing. But the gist is a clear downturn in the numbers that the board tracks. 87 domestic violence-related homicides were identified in 2024, which is the second-lowest total in the last ten years. The report also noted the end of a five-year trend in which 100 victims per year had been identified. In fact, the 2024 totals for intimate partner violence were 20% lower than the average over the last decade.
We’ll have to wait and see whether this report is an outlier in the data or the start of something real and sustainable — and we believe there’s reason to hope for the latter. But either way, it’s cause to celebrate. Fewer lives lost due to domestic violence is an unambiguous win, and we’re grateful.
We’re starting to see the impact of our expansion, and that means more lives changed.
When we posted our annual report this summer, one statistic stood out to us above all the others. We reported 334 total individual lives touched through one of our three programs — the highest number in a year that our ministry has ever seen. Likewise, the number of clients served through our Non-Residential Services program doubled in 2025, thanks to increased organizational emphasis. As we begin gathering data for 2026, we expect to see that trend continue and even greater impact this year.
Those numbers aren’t important because they make us look good. They’re important because it proves that the expansion we’ve undertaken — and which you and so many others helped us to fund — are already having a real, tangible effect. More people finding help through our services is, very simply, the whole point of what we’re doing, and the fact that we’ve been able to increase that number is cause for celebration. We’re thankful!
Thank you, sincerely, for coming alongside us on that journey. We couldn’t do this without you.
Our staff has grown — and so has our ability to serve.
As our team began putting together information for end-of-year communications, we were struck by one of the stories our data tells. So far, in the calendar year 2026, our organization has hired 37 individuals to join our team and help advance our mission. Some of those new staffers joined the administrative side of the organization, helping to fine-tune our training options and finances and volunteer initiatives, but the majority were direct service staff: advocates walking hand-in-hand with the people we serve.
37 people across three different locations is a huge amount of growth in one year, and there were certainly challenges that went along with that. But the first step in expanding was ensuring that we had enough team members to provide top-quality care for our guests, clients, and residents, and we couldn’t be happier about where we ended up. We’re grateful to everyone who came aboard in 2026, and we’re excited about the future.
It should be said that ultimately, what we’re most thankful for is you — our dedicated supporters and community partners. None of the above items would have been possible without the community around us. We’re better together!
During this holiday season, we pray that you have time to rest, enjoy community, and reflect on the Lord’s blessings. Happy Thanksgiving!